Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino met with the media a little while for his final press conference before tomorrow’s Liberty Bowl.
So did ECU coach Skip Holtz, but we’ll have more on Holtz later.
Petrino spoke about the suspensions of safety Matt Harris, linebacker Wendel Davis and receiver Marques Wade.
To make this easy, I’ll just post some of his comments about the subject up here on the blog:
Q: Can you talk about your disappointment with having to suspend guys. Especially when you read them the rules.
A: “It really hurts. It’s something that’s really hard. It’s hard on me to do that. Those guys have put a great commitment and effort into being Razorbacks and they just stepped out of their character a little bit. I know that they have given a lot to this football team. They have been responsible for helping us win games and helping us build this program. So it was really a hard thing to do in one aspect. In the other aspect, it wasn’t a hard decision because they knew the consequences. One thing you always try to do with your football team is make sure they understand what’s right and what wrong is. And then once they understand what is right and what is wrong, they have a decision to make. Whether they’re going to do right or do wrong. If you choose to do wrong, there’s natural consequences. That’s something I always try to tell our football team is any actions there’s natural consequences. I always give them a few examples. If you’re going to cheat on your wife for a long time, the natural consequence is you’re going to get divorced. If you’re going to rob and steal, the natural consequence is you go to jail. As young men you’ve got to learn that for every action there’s natural consequences.”
Q: Did you struggle with deciding with the consequence would be or did you know immediately?
A: “I didn’t struggle with the consequence at all. I didn’t sleep well because it hurt in my stomach. It hurt in my heart. The understanding of why they would do that was the only hard part.”
Q: How does it impact the defense to lose two starters and your second and third leading tacklers?
A: “We’ve got to get guys step up. We’re going to have to do it by numbers. At the free safety position Tramain Thomas and Anthony Leon have to share it, do a good job, really focus. Both of them are capable of running to the ball and tackling well. Playing the ball in the air and making interceptions. They have to do a good job of that. We’ll have to get help inside from a combination of Jerry Franklin, Terrell Williams and Freddy Burton. Those three guys. Unfortunately, Austin Moss is injured and out for the game. So he’s not available.”
