1. I don’t want to get on a soapbox, but …

Of all the moves Jimbo Fisher could make this offseason, this is the most dangerous.

And impulsive. And short-sighted. And reckless.

And reeking of desperation.

Bobby Petrino is a helluva offensive coordinator, and quarterbacks coach and play-caller. Bobby Petrino is a horrible assistant coach.

It will end at some point for Fisher at Texas A&M, and it will more than likely end badly. The history of failed coaches in College Station is the ultimate roadmap.

The end will come quicker with Petrino by his side.

We’re 5 years into the Fisher experiment at Texas A&M, and 247Sports is reporting that Fisher will interview Missouri State coach — and longtime coaching mercenary (I say mercenary, you say conman) — Bobby Petrino for the Aggies’ vacant offensive coordinator position.

The idea of Fisher and Petrino — two of the biggest egos in the coaching fraternity (and I say that with no malice, it’s who most coaches are) — standing side by side trying to win SEC games is frightening. Not because of the potential impact on the game, or the Aggies or the SEC.

But because of the inevitable implosion, simmering from the moment they sit at the same table for the first staff meeting to introduce Petrino to an already combustible situation. The only thing lacking is ignition.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the match to set the thing ablaze: the quarterback position.

Fisher believes he knows a thing or two about the quarterback spot. He’s coached 2 No. 1 overall NFL Draft picks (JaMarcus Russell, Jameis Winston), has 4 first-round NFL Draft picks at the position (Christian Ponder, EJ Manuel) and he’d just as soon keep his unofficial title of head ball coach/offense — but no one is hiring a guy who got pushed out of a dream job with a $95 million parachute.

Fisher has to make this work.

But instead of hiring a young, charismatic offensive coordinator with new ideas and the ability to recruit quarterbacks and skill players, the first move is apparently Petrino. The one guy who will absolutely make sure it doesn’t work.

It’s unthinkable, really. Petrino doesn’t have the temperament to be an assistant coach. Hasn’t since he was a quarterbacks coach/OC with NFL’s Jaguars in the early 2000s, when then Jaguars coach Tom Coughlin called him the best play-caller he’d ever been around.

Petrino wanted bigger, better things and instead of waiting and working his way through the NFL, he jumped for the offensive coordinator job at Auburn in 2002, and a year after that, the head coach job at Louisville.

He hasn’t been an assistant since, but between then and now, his massive ego and need for control of all things football, led him to:

— Be part of a failed coup in the early 2000s to unseat Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville. Auburn officials wanted Tubs replaced, and flew clandestinely to Louisville to interview Petrino in the middle of the season.

The coup was exposed, and Louisville officials were furious. They stuck with Petrino, who rebuilt the program over the next 2 years and won big.

— After getting a massive raise from Louisville and declaring he’s a lifer there, Petrino left soon after to coach the NFL’s Falcons.

— Before his first season with the Falcons ended, he walked out on his team to accept the head coaching job at Arkansas.

— After leading Arkansas to a top 3 ranking and the Sugar Bowl, he later lied about a relationship with a subordinate, and was fired despite his successful run.

— He resurfaced 2 years later at Western Kentucky, trying to reboot his career and proclaiming he was there for the long haul. After 1 season, he left to return to Louisville.

— Coached Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson, before it eventually all unraveled and he was fired after 5 seasons.

— Two years later in 2020, in yet another reboot, he agreed to coach FCS Missouri State.

This is the guy who is going to play well with Fisher? The same Fisher whose own legendary ego dates back to his days as the coach-in-waiting at Florida State, where he forced the university’s hand to push iconic coach Bobby Bowden out 1 year early — or Fisher would walk.

That move took unthinkable stones.

This move would top that — and eventually collapse the whole thing he’s trying to put together in College Station.

2. A bold, bad move

Years ago I wrote a profile of Bret Bielema arriving at Arkansas and cleaning up the mess Petrino left behind.

It wasn’t just the inappropriate relationship with a subordinate or lying about it to his superiors or the infamous motorcycle crash that unearthed the unseemly events.

It was how Petrino’s management of the program had worn down all involved. Yep, they were top 3 at one point under Petrino — but there were cracks everywhere.

One Arkansas staffer told me, “He was an ass—-, but he was our ass—-.”

Last week, I reached out to an assistant coach on that staff of more than a decade ago, and asked him about the idea of Fisher hiring Petrino.

“I can’t begin to imagine what that’s going to look like,” the former Petrino assistant told me. “I’ve never been around a more dysfunctional and demeaning environment than what we had (at Arkansas). I thought, well, he’s just coaching hard. No, it was humiliation at times — for players and coaches.”

Bobby Petrino is not an assistant coach. There will be power struggles between he and Fisher, and there will be a winner and a loser.

Understand this: Petrino is a terrific coach. He will whip the offense into shape, and they will score points — but the interaction between 2 mega personalities won’t work, and will eventually bleed over into the locker room and on the field.

The losses will mount while the offense will be among the SEC’s best. At some point, someone will have to answer.

Take a wild stab in the dark who gets fired? I’ll give you a hint: the guy with $80-something million remaining on his contract.

Not interim Aggies coach Bobby Petrino.

3. The wrong choice, The Epilogue

Fisher can end this before it begins. He can call around and do some reconnaissance and get a better idea of what he’s inviting into an already shaky locker room.

Or he can just hire someone else. Like Toledo coach Jason Candle. Or Washington OC Ryan Grubb. Or Wake Forest OC Warren Ruggiero.

Fisher needs a quarterbacks coach and coordinator and play-caller. The further removed he is from the process — yet can still manage it — the better the Aggies’ offense and program will be.

Hiring Petrino will eventually lead to conflict of egos over how the offense is run, the plays are called and the quarterbacks are coached. That conflict then soils everything.

Fisher needs a coordinator who has the chops to handle full control of the offense, and the humility to allow Fisher to peek under the hood every once in a while and give opinions.

No chance that happens with Petrino.

He can always throw a ridiculous amount of cash (A&M is good for it) at an OC of an SEC rival to weaken its program in the process. Like Kendal Briles at Arkansas, or Charlie Weis Jr. at Ole Miss.

Or he can hire Petrino, and move ahead the clock that’s already ticking on his departure.

4. Changes everywhere

NFL opt-outs, transfer portal moves and injuries have left SEC teams reshaped for bowl season.

Four teams (and possibly 5) will be playing backup quarterbacks: Florida (Jack Miller), Tennessee (Joe Milton), Alabama (Jalen Milroe), Kentucky (Kaiya Sheron) and possibly LSU (Garrett Nussmeier).

More teams will be limited by the portal, including Mississippi State losing its starting tailback (Dillon Johnson) and No. 1 wideout (Rara Thomas).

The big decisions will come from non-Playoff, New Year’s 6 bowl game participants Alabama and Tennessee. Though neither has announced players sitting out the Sugar and Orange Bowls, respectively, there will be opt-outs.

Currently, the Florida trio of QB Anthony Richardson, LB Ventrell Miller and G O’Cyrus Torrence have opted out, as have Arkansas LB Drew Sanders and WR Jason Haselwood, South Carolina CB Cam Smith and QB Will Levis.

Richardson, Torrence, Sanders, Levis and Smith are projected Day 1 or early Day 2 picks.

Expect Alabama QB Bryce Young and DE Will Anderson Jr. to formally announce they will skip the Sugar Bowl, and safety Jordan Battle could, too. All 3 are Day 1 picks.

Tennessee WRs Jalin Hyatt and Cedric Tillman are also possible opt-outs.

5. The Weekly 5

Five picks against the spread — expanded SEC bowl edition — courtesy of FanDuel:

  • Ohio State vs. Georgia (-6.5)
  • Florida vs. Oregon State (-10.5)
  • Wake Forest (-1.5) vs. Missouri
  • Kansas vs. Arkansas (-3)
  • Texas Tech (+3.5) vs. Ole Miss
  • Notre Dame vs. South Carolina (+2.5)
  • Clemson vs. Tennessee (+6.5)
  • Kansas State (+3.5) vs. Alabama
  • Iowa vs. Kentucky (+2.5)
  • Mississippi State vs. Illinois (-1.5)
  • LSU (-10.5) vs. Purdue

Championship week: 5-4.

Season: 38-31.

6. Your tape is your résumé

An NFL scout analyzes a draft-eligible SEC player. This week: Kentucky RB Chris Rodriguez.

“Speed will be an issue, no doubt. He doesn’t have top-end speed, and doesn’t have 5- or 10-yard explosion. But he moves the pile, and gets chunk plays. He also has surprisingly nice hands in the pass game. He’s a smart runner. He sees a crease and hits it. There are some off-field issues you’ll have to do some work on, but he’s a mid- to late-round guy who could easily stick on a roster and be a solid No.2 guy.”

7. Powered Up

This week’s Power Poll, and 1 big thing: grading the regular season.

1. Georgia (A): Lost 15 players to the NFL, and another 13 to the transfer portal. An unbeaten season with an average margin of victory of 26.4 points.

2. Tennessee (A-): The best season in Knoxville in more than 2 decades — in Year 2 under coach Josh Heupel. A remarkable achievement for an ascending program.

3. Alabama (B): Too much talent (and too many good coaches) to lose 2 games it had control of in the 4th quarter.

4. LSU (A-): Considering what 1st-year coach Brian Kelly walked into (depleted roster, fractured locker room), a chance to win 10 games is stunning.

5. South Carolina (B): A month ago, after the emasculation at Florida, the season was worth a D. Wins over Tennessee and Clemson are huge for recruiting.

6. Mississippi State (B): A win in the Egg Bowl saved and otherwise disappointing season. Can the Bulldogs keep QB Will Rogers for 1 more season?

7. Ole Miss (B-): Rebels were 8 points from winning 10 games again. Not bad for a complete roster turnover. More chemistry and consistency in 2023 (and growth from QB Jaxson Dart) will move Ole Miss back to 10 wins.

8. Kentucky (C): A disappointing season. No other way to look at it. The offensive line struggled, and the offense couldn’t adjust — and UK wasted a season with talented QB Will Levis.

9. Arkansas (C-): Plenty of preseason hype, and 4 gut punch losses by a combined 9 points. That’s how close Hogs were to 10 wins.

10. Florida (D): Nothing worked particularly well, but there are building blocks for the future: TB Trevor Etienne, LB Shemar James, S Kamari Wilson, OT Austin Barber.

11. Missouri (D): Won last 3 SEC games to get bowl eligible and get 15 critical bowl practices for a young team. Down the road, that will be biggest takeaway from a disappointing season.

12. Auburn (D-): A debacle of a season, another coaching change — all saved from a complete failure by former player Cadillac Williams and his inspiring run as interim coach.

13. Texas A&M (F): Top 3 in the SEC in talent, No. 1 in the SEC in underachieving. Don’t buy the “youth” excuses. Young, elite talent beats experience (and not as talented guys) all the time.

14. Vanderbilt (C+): We’re grading on scale, and it’s skewed positively for a program that took a big step with SEC wins over Kentucky and Florida — and a team that fought every game.

8. Ask and your shall receive

Matt: You have said many times that you think Billy Napier was the right hire at Florida. Do you still think so? — Harold Turner, Miami.

Harold:

I still think he’s the right hire, but I also believe his margin for error has decreased with the results of this season. No one thought this would be quick or easy, but the relatively painless improvement from LSU, TCU and USC with first-year coaches has raised the bar for Napier, who has every possible advantage at Florida.

You’re going to see a completely different team for Florida next year. There will be 6-8 (or more) transfer portal starters, and depending on how well Napier and his staff close out the 2023 recruiting class, could be a handful of true freshmen starters.

The roster just isn’t that talented. There’s the aforementioned freshman (see above), CB Jason Marshall and WR Ricky Pearsall — and every other job is wide open. It worked at LSU, TCU and USC — why wouldn’t it work in Gainesville?

9. Numbers

34.12. All preseason, Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said the key to the season was his defense’s ability to get off the field on 3rd down. He said the Vols were among the nation’s best in 1st and 2nd down defense, but that it all fell apart on 3rd down.

Tennessee’s 3rd-down defense improved 8 percentage points (from 42.13 percent of opponent 3rd downs converted, to 34.12) this season. If you need a reason why the Vols shaved nearly 6 points per game off their per game average in 2022, it’s getting off the field more consistently.

In fact, the difference in SEC games was more glaring: from a whopping 52.63 percent of third downs converted by opponents in 2021, to 39.82 — a drop of almost 13 percent.

10. Quote to note

South Carolina coach Shane Beamer: “Beamer Ball, to me, is having a chance to make plays no matter who is on the field — offense, defense or special teams.”