Arkansas AD says he's able to discuss ex-coach's team on playoff committee
Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long sees no reason why he wouldn’t be able to talk about Louisville when the College Football Playoff committee starts ranking teams.
Long, the former chairman of the committee, used to be the boss of Louisville coach Bobby Petrino. Long had to fire Petrino in 2012 after the coach’s motorcycle crash revealed an inappropriate relationship with former Arkansas volleyball player Petrino had hired to the football staff.
”No, there’s no reason for me to recuse myself,” Long told the AP before he met with the Northwest Arkansas Touchdown Club on Wednesday. ”I think Louisville is a fine football program, and they demonstrated that after three weeks of the season. We’ve got six more weeks before we rank a group of teams.”
Louisville is currently No. 3 in the AP poll after a 3-0 start. The Cardinals demolished Florida State at home in Week 3 and meet Clemson in Week 5. A win over the Tigers will almost certainly have the Cardinals near the top of the CFP rankings barring an unforeseen collapse.
Since the CFP committee includes numerous people with ties to teams that could be a part of its rankings, it has a recusal policy in place. It says “the committee will have the option to add other recusals if special circumstances arise.” (You can read the full policy here)
But we’d be extremely surprised if the committee deemed it necessary for Long to be excused from talking about Louisville. Fellow committee member Tyrone Willingham was fired from both Notre Dame and Washington and has no recusal regarding either team.
Petrino was 34-17 in four seasons at Arkansas before he was fired. His teams went a combined 21-5 over his final two seasons before he was fired. After Petrino crashed his motorcycle riding with the staffer he was having an affair with, Arkansas found that he didn’t disclose his relationship with the woman and that he paid her $20,000 for a Christmas present.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
