He's Back! Bobby Petrino's Apology Infomercial On ESPN

Coming soon.....

-- Ellis Redding in his parole board hearing in The Shawshank Redemption before receiving another "REJECTED" stamp

After roughly four months off the grid, where the only indications that he was still alive were the repeated efforts to liquidate various assets, ousted Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino has emerged from hiding, joining ESPN softball-chucker college football writer Joe Schad for an interview that can best be described as "woefully transparent."

If you'd like to take a look at the highlight reel, well, here you go:

Like a prisoner trying to dupe the parole board into reaching for the "ACCEPTED" stamp, Petrino hit every high spot on the Contrition Checklist:

1. The "How Could I Let This Happen?"

"How could I put what we had in jeopardy? This is what I wake up early every morning thinking about, what I lay in bed thinking about. Why?"

CHECK.

2. The "How Could I Do This To My Loved Ones?"

"Looking at the look in [his wife's] eyes. How I could possibly do something like this, to hurt her? The anger. The feeling of, 'How could you possibly do this to me?'"

CHECK.

3. The Empty Acceptance Of Responsibility
4. The Mixing In Of the "S" Word

"That's not how I was raised. That's not how I raised my children. I take responsibility for it and I am really sorry. I have played it over and over in my head a million times. How could I do this? How could this happen? And not just the hiring. Or that day. But my actions, my behavior -- for months it was just wrong."

CHECK. CHECK.

5. The Empty Promise Of Using His Fuck Up To Help Others Who Fuck Up In The Future

"I've made mistakes and I'm going to be a better person for it. I'm going to keep my life in better balance. And I really feel I'll be a better coach because this happened, because now I know that I'm going to coach the person as much as the player and help the person who has made mistakes, help him understand that he is not going to be defined by the mistakes he has made but how he reacts to it and overcomes it."

CHECK.

All right, so let's be very clear about exactly what this interview was -- this is the first step toward Petrino rehabilitating his image just enough to give justification to an athletics director and a school president desperate enough to hire him, whenever that may be. If there were a match.com website for head-coaching candidates, this was the introductory video for the New Bobby Petrino, hoping desperately that an administrator somewhere will click PLAY and see the metamorphosis. Petrino 2.0 -- contrite, humbled, eager.

And still totally full of shit.