Jessica Dorrell, Bobby Petrino Scandal Shows Power Of FOIA

In an amazing turn of events, another former Arkansas coach has been caught sending thousands of text messages to a mistress.

Bobby Petrino is just the latest Arkansas coach to reveal a bit too much on a state issued cell phone. Petrino was dismissed by Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long on before his phone records became available, but the revealing records won't make it any easier for him to land his next job.

The records, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, show Petrino texting Jessica Dorrell, a 25-year-old student-athlete development coordinator for the football program, all through the night.

Over the course of a seven month time frame, Petrino and Dorrell exchanged more than 4,300 text messages and nearly 300 phone calls. That includes 84 text messages on Oct. 28^th -- the day before Arkansas defeated Vanderbilt -- and five early morning phone calls to Dorrell on the week of the Alabama game.

But Dorrell, the mistress that got the Arkansas coach fired, wasn't the only woman that Petrino was texting frequently. Deadspin revealed on Thursday that Petrino also exchanged nearly two hundred texts with Alison Melder, a former bikini model and current assistant with the Republican Party of Arkansas.

It's unclear the type of relationship that Petrino had with Melder, but the latest revelations inch the scandal closer to the Tiger Woods fiasco of 2009. As more and more media members pore over the exhaustive phone records, it's possible for other extramarital affairs to be discovered.

It's not exactly a shock that a person in power -- Petrino was the highest paid employee in the state of Arkansas last year-- would be involved in an affair, but was is surprising is that he communicated with his potential mistresses through his work phone.

Not only could he afford a phone of his own with an annual salary of $3.53 million, but what's most amazing is that the coach before him, Houston Nutt, got caught up in an extremely similar situation.

Nutt eventually resigned his position in 2007 after an Arkansas fan named Thomas McAfee discovered more than 2,000 texts between the former Arkansas coach and Donna Brag, a local news anchor.

McAfee acquired the records through a FOIA request and set off a firestorm in Arkansas that suggested Nutt was carrying on extramarital affairs. McAfee initially made the FOIA request to find out Nutt's involvement in with an email from a booster that heavily criticized then-quarterback Mitch Mustain.

That led to other Arkansas fans filing FOIA requests until Nutt was run out of town only a year after winning SEC Coach of the Year.

Think about that for a second: Two Arkansas coaches have been caught frequently texting women that weren't their wives through FOIA requests.

It was incredibly idiotic for Nutt to do so on his work phone, but at least he was the first at Arkansas to do so. For Petrino to get caught doing the same thing after Nutt was publicly trashed for it, is simply ludicrous.

How could anyone be that dumb is mind-boggling.

Petrino's career prospects were irrepacably damaged when it came out that he got into a motorcycle accident with Dorrell and then lied about it to his athletic director, but it is the text messages that really showcase just how bad of a situation this is for him.

Without seeing the astonishing 4,300 text messages back-and-forth, Petrino mgith have been able to rationalize that it was a one-time fling and nothing serious. But instead it's apparent it was a lengthy relationship that could doom his marriage and that's all known because of FOIA requests.

Let it serve as a warning to all: Next time you plan on texting a hot, young 25-year-old mistress -- do so on your personal phone.