Bobby Petrino may have picked a good time for a bad year.

Much as frustrated fans and overwrought talk-show types might want the University of Louisville to fire its football coach, a University of Louisville Athletic Association board member thinks Petrino’s $14 million buyout could be prohibitive.

“The university is not in a position to buy him out,” Tom Meeker said Monday.

Money is tight. Donations are down. The Hickman Camp Fund, whose $16.8 million balance represented more than two-thirds of ULAA’s available funds at the end of 2017, lost more than half of its value through basketball coach Chris Mack’s buyout from Xavier University and U of L’s settlement with former athletic director Tom Jurich.

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ULAA business manager Jeff Spoelker said Monday that the Hickman Camp Fund had dwindled to $8 million as of June. With $168 million in debt service already scheduled through 2044 and Rick Pitino’s breach-of-contract lawsuit still pending, ULAA appears loath to take on additional liabilities.

So while Petrino has risen to the No. 6 ranking on coacheshotseat.com, this may be a more accurate reflection of public opinion than board sentiment.

“Fans are part of the campus community,” Meeker said. “They have to be heard. ... (But) I’m not on the board to make easy decisions.”

A former president of Churchill Downs, Meeker assessed the situation with an analogy from his Marine Corps parachute training.

“I think the football program is in good hands, albeit the fact that we’re not winning (this season),” he said. “... I don’t think it’s time to stand in the doorway, jump out of the plane and pull the D ring.”

Clearly, Petrino’s Cardinals are not flying high. They have reached the midway point in their season at 2-4, most recently absorbing a 66-31 thumping by Georgia Tech that ranked as the school’s most lopsided home loss since 1997. Two years removed from a 52-7 victory at Boston College, U of L will return to Chestnut Hill this week as a 14-point underdog.

“I think we have the potential to turn it around,” Petrino said Monday afternoon. “We’ve actually been 2-4 before, the year we were 0-3 when Lamar (Jackson) was a freshman (2015), and then got back on track and finished really strong. That’s what you have to picture. That’s what you have to do. But the way to do that is to focus on one game and get ready for Boston College and find a way to win.”

Publicly at least, U of L athletic director Vince Tyra is also focused on the immediate future. Contacted via text message Monday, he declined to address how university finances might influence Petrino’s fate.

“We have half a season left, so I don’t intend to speculate on Bobby’s future, only support it as we take on Boston College this week,” Tyra wrote.

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Petrino’s 2016 contract extension provides that he be paid for up to three years in the event of his termination, plus as much as $1.5 million in bonuses based on pre-determined academic benchmarks.

Even at that, though, USA TODAY’s salary database shows Petrino’s buyout as barely one-fifth that of Texas A&M’s $68 million potential parting gift to Jimbo Fisher, and less than half those of Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, Alabama’s Nick Saban, Ohio State’s Urban Meyer and Auburn’s Gus Malzahn.

As coaching salaries soar, so does the cost of paying coaches not to coach.

“Schools could do common-sense contracts and actually honor them, plus coaches could do the same, but we know how likely that is,” said David Ridpath, who teaches sports administration at Ohio University. “At the Power Five (conference) level, I am not convinced there is a limit or ceiling to this.”

Barring a tremendous turnaround, Louisville could be an intriguing test case. If U of L can ill-afford to fire Petrino, neither can it afford to keep him if it means a significant slide in attendance. There would not seem to be much middle ground.

“I know the university’s cash resources are depleted,” former U of L trustee Bill Stone said. “It may be a blessing in disguise that we don’t have all the money in the world right now ‘cause it will force us to keep our coach and help him to improve his staff.”

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Tim Sullivan: 502-582-4650, tsullivan@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @TimSullivan714. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/tims.