TCU coaching search: SMU’s Sonny Dykes seems to be top candidate

That TCU will be looking for a new coach isn’t that surprising; there had been speculation for a few weeks that Gary Patterson would step down at the end of the season. But Sunday night’s announcement of Patterson’s immediate departure means TCU becomes the second Big 12 school to officially have a coaching search.

Texas Tech parted ways with Matt Wells last Monday, and immediate speculation centered on UTSA’s Jeff Traylor and SMU’s Sonny Dykes as the Red Raiders’ top candidates. But UTSA announced a raise and an extension for Traylor a few hours before the Patterson news broke, and sources tell On3 that Dykes would be more interested in the TCU opening than Texas Tech’s. Traylor will not be a candidate at TCU.

TCU has money: Patterson was paid $6.01 million a year and was the second-highest paid coach in the Big 12, behind Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley. Dykes makes a reported $1.3 million annually.

One interesting aspect of a potential Dykes-to-TCU move: While they are not in the same conference, SMU and TCU are longtime bitter rivals from their time in the old Southwest Conference because of their close proximity (SMU is in Dallas, TCU in Fort Worth). Leaving SMU for TCU would be akin to leaving NC State for North Carolina or Purdue for Indiana.

Patterson was the second-longest tenured coach in the nation, behind Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz, and the winningest coach in TCU history. But the Horned Frogs’ program has slipped a bit of late; they are 38-32 since the beginning of the 2016 season and 11 of those wins came in 2017. The Horned Frogs are 3-5 this season, with a 1-4 mark in the Big 12.

With Oklahoma and Texas soon leaving the Big 12 for the SEC, TCU would seem to be in a position to become one of the league’s premier programs. The Dallas Metroplex is one of the most fertile recruiting areas in the nation.

(On3’s Gerry Hamilton and Matt Zenitz contributed to this report.)