Gary Patterson no longer met the standard he had set at TCU
Gary Patterson went stale at TCU. It happens. There aren’t many coaches who know when it’s time to leave. They remain addicted to competition, convinced they can ski uphill when everyone can see they’re headed down the mountain.
It became obvious to TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati, just as it became obvious to anyone who can tell a “W” from an “L.” TCU is 3-5 this season, 1-4 in the Big 12. Since the beginning of 2018, the Horned Frogs are 21-22 overall and 13-19 in league play. It is a backhanded compliment of sorts that in his 21st season, Patterson no longer met the standard he set at TCU.
He took over when Dennis Franchione left for Alabama. Patterson, the defensive coordinator, got the job. It wasn’t a plum. Patterson shepherded the Horned Frogs from the Western Athletic Conference (RIP) to Conference USA to the Mountain West to the Promised Land, the Big 12. The league didn’t matter. Patterson’s Frogs won.
In the Mountain West, in 2010, they went 13-0 and won the Rose Bowl. In the Big 12, in 2014, they went 12-1 and made the inaugural College Football Playoff. Check that — they went into the final weekend of the season No. 4, beat Iowa State 55-3, and got passed by for Ohio State. It came as small solace that the Buckeyes went ahead and won the national championship. The chip on Patterson’s shoulder got bigger.
The chip never came off his shoulder. Not after 11 10-win seasons, not after TCU raised his annual compensation above $5 million, not after TCU built a statue of him on its Fort Worth campus. Patterson kept trying to prove himself, remained the step-slow linebacker who started at Dodge City Community College, who got his first coaching job at Tennessee Tech.
Patterson could talk for an hour about how he didn’t need the attention. But he had the touch. By god, he could coach defense. And better than that, Patterson found recruiting gems in Texas that the big boys in Austin and College Station overlooked. TCU signed a running back named Jerry Hughes and made him an All-America defensive end. TCU signed a high school wide receiver named Paul Dawson and made him an All-America linebacker.
Patterson became the ideal coach for a school in Fort Worth, a city always aware that it’s looked down upon by Dallas, 30 miles to the east. Fort Worth loved his chestiness, his regular-guyness. You can bet that Nick Saban doesn’t leave his office on a spring day and pick up lunch at a McDonald’s drive-thru window. When Patterson began plucking a guitar and singing country tunes, Fort Worth loved him more.
Fort Worth bought in and TCU bought in. In his first season as coach, TCU played four home games with an average attendance of 29,000. But Patterson kept winning. His record in his first 10 seasons in Fort Worth — 98-28. The university gave Amon Carter Stadium a $143 million makeover with sumptuous suites filled by wealthy Frogs (six donors pledged at least $15 million). This season, even as the Horned Frogs have struggled, in five home games, they have averaged more than 40,000 fans per game.
That is the real tribute to Patterson’s career at TCU. He changed the expectations. At the end, he didn’t meet them. The Frogs’ only conference win this season came at Texas Tech, which fired coach Matt Wells last week. TCU has lost each of its past three games by at least 12 points.
Patterson is 61, young by actuarial tables, old by coaching standards. Among FBS coaches, only Kirk Ferentz, in his 23rd season at Iowa, has been at his school longer than Patterson lasted at TCU.
Whoever replaces Patterson will strain to match what he accomplished. The Big 12 faces an uncertain future. The conference will move on without a bell cow, its television revenue sure to shrink after the departure of Texas and Oklahoma. TCU would be foolish not to try to coax Sonny Dykes to head west on I-30 from SMU. It would be an act of heresy equal, in baseball terms, to Leo Durocher leaving the Brooklyn Dodgers for the New York Giants.
In an era when athletic directors no longer wait until the end of the season to make a coaching change, Patterson looked like a throwback. Frank Solich left Ohio University shortly before his 17th season began. Patterson leaves TCU with four games to play. TCU asked him to finish out the season. He declined. It might be pride. It might be that Patterson finally saw what the rest of us already have seen. He has been heading down the mountain for a while.