lost by a combined score of 131–39. Days after the loss to Syracuse, Louisville fired Petrino on November 11, 2018, agreeing to buy out the remaining $14.1 million of his contract. Athletic director Vince Tyra said that he did not believe the players were responding under Petrino, and felt he needed to make an immediate change to start the turnaround. Secondary coach Lorenzo Ward was named interim head coach for the rest of the season. In a postmortem, ESPN's Andrea Adelson wrote that Jackson's presence masked serious deficiencies in the Louisville program that were exposed in full in 2018. For example, during his Heisman season of 2016, Jackson was sacked 47 times. During the 2018 season, the running game was suspect, and the defense was on its third coordinator in as many seasons. Crawford, who has covered the Cardinals for almost three decades at both WDRB and The Courier-Journal, recalled that the 2018 season, and with it Petrino's tenure, effectively ended when Petrino ripped into his players in the locker room following a close loss to Florida State. According to Crawford, Petrino lost the team at that point; they would not win another game that season. Missouri State On January 15, 2020, Missouri State University, of the Missouri Valley Football Conference (MVFC) in the FCS, announced that they had hired Petrino to replace Dave Steckel as their head football coach. In Petrino's first season with Missouri State, the Bears compiled a 5–4 record and were selected to compete in the FCS playoffs for the first time since 1990. However, the Bears lost their first-round matchup with the University of North Dakota by a score of 44–10. Petrino's second season with Missouri State was also successful; he led the Bears to an 8–3 record in the regular season and a berth in the FCS Playoffs with a first-round matchup against UT-Martin. They lost a close matchup, 32–31. In 2022, Petrino's final season at Missouri State, the team regressed to post a 5-6 record, which included a 5 game losing streak. Missouri State played Petrino's former team, Arkansas, in Fayetteville and came close to pulling off the upset, but No. 10 ranked Arkansas won 38–27. Personal life Petrino has two sons and two daughters with his wife, Becky. His older daughter, Kelsey, graduated from the University of Louisville; his older son, Nick, also attended Louisville. His younger son, Bobby, Jr., attended the