Louisville dismisses coach Bobby Petrino with two games left in a spiraling season.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Louisville’s seven-game skid was bad enough. Worse were the large margins of defeat and opponents’ apparent ease in lighting up the scoreboard.
That combination spelled the end of coach Bobby Petrino’s second chapter with the Cardinals.
Louisville fired Petrino on Sunday morning with two games left in a spiraling season that includes five blowout losses in which the Cardinals allowed at least 50 points.
The school announced Petrino’s dismissal with a statement from athletic director Vince Tyra, who said a new head coach would be chosen soon to restore the program to national prominence.
“It was clear the players weren’t responding,” he said. “The coaches’ and the players’ efforts have to go in the right direction, but I didn’t feel it was going that way.”
Second-year safeties coach Lorenzo Ward, 51, was named to coach Louisville on an interim basis.
Also let go were quarterbacks coach Nick Petrino, the coach’s son; linebackers coach Ryan Beard and defensive line coach L.D. Scott, Petrino’s sons-in-law; and fifth-year director of football operations Andy Wagner.
Louisville (2-8) lost 54-23 at No. 12 Syracuse on Friday night, dropping to 0-7 in Atlantic Coast Conference play.
Petrino, 57, departs with a 77-35 mark in two stints with Louisville, including 36-26 since returning in 2014. His exit will be expensive for Louisville, which owes him $14 million under terms of his contract extension signed in April 2016. Tyra said Petrino would receive the full buyout.
Petrino is 119-56 overall in a college career that included stops at Arkansas and Western Kentucky. He also coached 13 games with the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons in 2007.