Bobby Petrino hiring: Andy Staples explains why new UNC OC will not 'bigfoot Bill Belichick'

North Carolina reportedly made a pretty notable hire on Monday, with Bobby Petrino set to come in as the Tar Heels’ offensive coordinator under Bill Belichick. On3’s Andy Staples is now interested to see how that latest addition to the staff works in Chapel Hill.

Staples discussed Petrino’s reported hire as UNC’s OC during ‘Andy & Ari On3’ on Monday. It’s the latest stop on his football resumé, having made several collegiate stops over the past four decades, and one that could be intriguing with him calling the offense for the Tar Heels.

“Bobby Petrino has got a long history here,” said Staples. “But, one thing Bobby Petrino has always been is an excellent playcaller.”

Petrino has had offensive roles on college teams going back to 1983, including around the FBS, along with two stints in the NFL, since 1992. That’s most notably with collegiate roles as an offensive coordinator with Louisville, Auburn, Texas A&M, and Arkansas, along with head coaching tenures at Louisville, Arkansas on a full-time as well as an interim basis, Western Kentucky, and Missouri State. In those college stops since 1998, Petrino has a record as a head coach of 137-78 (.637), while his offenses in the FBS have averaged 34.2 points and 450.9 yards of offense per game.

However, it’s of note that the last two stops for Petrino eventually led to midseason firings, with Texas A&M firing Jimbo Fisher in his lone year in College Station, and Arkansas firing Sam Pittman, who he took over for in the interim this fall, after two seasons back in Fayetteville. But, Staples doesn’t see it playing out similarly, as he expects Belichick to let Petrino do what he does best now at North Carolina.

“I’m very interested to see how this relationship works. Because, look, I’m not worried about Bobby Petrino coming in and trying to bigfoot Bill Belichick. Nobody is bigfooting Bill Belichick,” said Staples. “But, we also saw Bobby Petrino come in as the OC with Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M? That didn’t work. Now, I suspect this is a very different dynamic. In that situation in 2023, when Bobby Petrino was brought in to be the offensive coordinator and rescue Texas A&M’s offense, Jimbo Fisher was the primary playcaller, didn’t really want to give it up, probably didn’t really give it up. But, we saw, at Arkansas, Bobby Petrino calling plays can still be devastatingly effective.”

“So, Bill Belichick, defensive guy, tends to let his coordinators cook when they’re good,” Staples said. “I think he’s going to let Bobby Petrino cook.”

The question now, though, is what kind of roster will be at the disposal of Belichick, and what offense will be at the disposal of Petrino. But, if a better, more capable team is fielded than what they had this past year in the tenure’s debut, Staples doesn’t know why it wouldn’t work, or at least be better, next season for the Tar Heels.

“The question is will they have a better roster than they had this year, because that’s what matters here…So, we will see how they stock that roster,” said Staples “If you put together kind of the average ACC team, with Bobby Petrino calling the offense, and you keep the defensive staff the same because I will say that North Carolina’s defense, as the season went on, got a lot better? Average ACC team roster-wise, Bobby Petrino calling plays, get a decent quarterback in there? I can live with that. I think that would be a competitive team in the ACC. I think there’s a really good chance you have a competitive team in the ACC doing that.”

“And so, I’m more intrigued by North Carolina than I would have been. We knew they were making a change. We knew they were moving on from Freddie Kitchens. I didn’t know what that would result in, but this shows that Bill Belichick is saying, you know what, I need someone who understands how to run a college offense, and Bobby Petrino is one of the best at running a college offense and has been. You can say whatever you want about all of the other stuff with Bobby Petrino. He’s really good at calling plays, and always has been,” Staples said. “So, that’s going to make it interesting.”