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Wake Forest RB gets SWEET revenge on Petrino’s Louisville for pulling scholarship

The Cardinals probably could have used Matt Colburn in Saturday’s loss!

NCAA Football: Wake Forest at Louisville
NCAA Football: Wake Forest at Louisville
Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports

There’s a lot of reasons to dislike Bobby Petrino, but it’s not often that many people get their revenge. However, Wake Forest running back Matt Colburn is one that was lucky enough to get his.

In 2015, Petrino’s team pulled Colburn’s scholarship offer 48 hours before National Signing Day.

Petrino’s not the only coach to have ever done so, but he’s known for not exactly looking out for anybody other than himself. Petrino asked Colburn to grayshirt, which is essentially an extreme form of redshirting:

A player maintains his non-binding verbal commitment but does not enroll until the spring semester, so as to not count against the current year’s scholarship limit.

Instead of taking the offer, Colburn signed with Wake Forest.

Saturday, Colburn ran all over Petrino’s Cardinals.

In Wake’s 56-35 win, Colburn stuffed the box score as if he were a kid dumping an entire bowl of Halloween candy into his bag. On 20 carries, he racked up 243 yards and three touchdowns.

After his game-long 74-yard touchdown run, he shrugged his shoulders at the Louisville crowd, and threw up their signature “L” signal as he made his way back to the Wake sideline:

Colburn’s 243 yards was a career high, eclipsing a previous career high from last year.

His previous career high also came against Louisville.

Colburn ran for a then-career high of 134 yards in Wake’s 42-32 win over Louisville.

Colburn’s long been understandably salty over having his scholarship pulled.

Colburn said via The State:

“Oh yeah, of course. I mean, definitely when it happened, it was definitely something … that just added more chips to my shoulder, bigger chips to my shoulder. But you know, I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder and like I said, this game is as big as any other game we play this year, but it’s the biggest game of the year right now because it’s the next game.”

Colburn has every right to be upset with Louisville, but it’s safe to say that he’s gotten the last word. And things could still get a lot worse for Petrino in the future, though his unusual contract could make things difficult.

Time will tell. But for now, Colburn can enjoy another shellacking of a Petrino-coached Louisville team.

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