How the divorce between TCU and football coach Gary Patterson happened so quickly
Gary Patterson seemed untouchable at TCU.
The man has a statue outside Amon G. Carter Stadium. He built the football program into a national powerhouse. He became a college football institution, a revered defensive mind who revolutionized how teams slow down spread offenses with his signature 4-2-5 defense.
Sure, Patterson went 181-79 with six conference championships and six AP top-10 finishes over 21 seasons. He coached 18 first-team All-Americans and had 55 players selected in the NFL Draft. The football achievements are why TCU has worked its way up the conference hierarchy, from the Western Athletic Conference to Conference USA to Mountain West to the Big 12.
And then there are measurables beyond the football field. TCU had 5,000 applications in 2000 and is now receiving about 20,000 a year. TCU’s endowment was at $937 million in May of 2000; it now stands at $2.1 billion. The school has spent $1.2 billion on non-athletic facilities and another $400 million on athletics facilities over the last two decades.
In large part, much of that boom is linked to what Patterson’s squads have been able to accomplish. The program has climbed the ranks of respectability from where it was a generation ago. Quite simply, the success on the football field has spilled across South University Drive lifting much of the 300-acre campus in a positive way.
Nobody will forget Patterson’s remarkable 2010 season when the Horned Frogs went 13-0, won the Rose Bowl and finished No. 2 in the country. Or the 2014 season when TCU was robbed of a College Football Playoff berth but still went on to win the Peach Bowl and finish No. 3 in the country. Or the 2015 season and the remarkable comeback to win the Alamo Bowl.
And the list goes on. The Patterson era brought more highs than lows, but it came to an abrupt end a week ago Sunday.
TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati and chancellor Victor Boshini informed Patterson that he wouldn’t be returning as the school’s coach in 2022. Donati and Boschini pleaded with Patterson to coach the rest of the season, but Patterson had no interest in being a lame-duck for the final four games.
So the sides agreed to mutually part ways and a coaching legend and a future College Football Hall of Famer ended his TCU career in an unceremonious fashion. TCU played its first post-Patterson era game against No. 14 Baylor on Saturday with Patterson’s friend and special assistant Jerry Kill serving as interim coach. (See the Sports section for coverage of the game.)
“These last few days have been really tough,” Donati said in making a public statement on Tuesday. “Tough on all of us here in the athletics department, tough on the TCU community. It’s frankly a place that was almost kind of unimaginable not too long ago. I acknowledge and recognize that it’s been a tough time the last 48 hours for all of our Horned Frogs out there, but I promise you there are brighter days to come.
“Gary Patterson is a TCU icon. He has built this football program and he’s helped build this university and this community. We’re forever indebted to the incredible contributions to Fort Worth, to TCU, to TCU athletics and to TCU football. He’s more than an icon. He’s a friend. He’s a colleague. He and [Patterson’s wife] Kelsey are family. They always will be, not just to TCU, to the entire Fort Worth community.
“I would tell you that Coach has been unbelievable in this transition. He’s shown a ton of class and professionalism. This has not been easy for any of us, so just very grateful for him for the way he’s handled that.”
How did TCU reach this point? It was a culmination of things. Patterson provided enough data points in recent years that the scales finally tipped to the point where he wasn’t untouchable anymore. A few outbursts during his weekly news conferences this season, while sometimes entertaining, drew the ire of some donors with school officials not even posting videos from a couple of those press conferences on the school’s website.
But the most important factor? Patterson had lost more games than he won since the start of the 2018 season, compiling a 21-22 record.
The Star-Telegram took an in-depth look at how the Gary Patterson era came to an end.
Laying the foundation
Given what he’s done for the school and program, it felt like Patterson had a lifetime contract at TCU. In reality, Patterson’s current contract took him through the 2024 season. He wanted an extension last offseason, according to sources. The Frogs didn’t have a standout 2020 by any stretch, but they won five of their final six games to become bowl-eligible.
Donati declined Patterson’s request, sources said, but that didn’t necessarily mean Patterson entered 2021 on the hot seat. Between Patterson’s $6 million annual salary and the school coming off a revenue-deprived 2020 season amid the coronavirus pandemic, TCU wasn’t in position to make that type of financial commitment.
And, as well as TCU had finished in 2020, the Frogs hadn’t played up to expectations for three straight seasons. Still, Patterson’s job seemed safe even though he entered the 2021 season with the least amount of security contract-wise he ever had.
Lofty goals
Patterson is the reason TCU has the football expectations it does. This is a program that had just one winning season in the 1970s and one more in the 1980s. This is a program that lost games to UT Arlington in the 1970s and lost six of eight games to Rice from 1992-99.
Patterson raised the program to unprecedented heights since taking over in December of 2000. Just think that in the 50 years before Patterson became head coach at TCU, the school had just two seasons it posted a winning percentage of at least .800. Patterson reached that mark 10 times in his career. Reaching a bowl game became the baseline for TCU football, but there were higher goals than that for 2021.
The Frogs were coming off a pedestrian 6-4 season during the pandemic in 2020. They had a losing season in 2019, dropping four of their final five games and finishing 1-6 in one-score games. And they had an injury-plagued 2018 season but finished 7-6 with a Cheez-It Bowl victory.
TCU entered this season with visions of contending for a Big 12 championship once again. Patterson compared this year’s team chemistry to that of the 2010 Rose Bowl team.
Those were lofty, and possibly unrealistic, goals but that is where the bar was set.
“We had very high expectations,” Donati said. “I think we all, Gary included, felt this would be a bounce-back year. We know the last few years have been subpar based on the standards Gary set for this program.”
TCU started the season 2-0 and then things started to unravel.
SMU week
TCU had a bye week going into the SMU game on Sept. 25. During the bye week, the school hosted an NIL event for local business owners to learn more about the new college rules allowing players to profit off their name, image and likeness.
This is the night, Sept. 15, when Patterson went on the first of several rants. He provided his unfiltered perspective, saying “there is no wrong anymore” when it comes to college athletics.
“We’re going to have to be up and running for my group by the end of November,” Patterson said, “or I have a chance to lose 25, 30 guys. That’s as plain and simple as I can speak of it.”
The following week, TCU fell to rival SMU 42-34 at home. It was the second straight loss to the Mustangs, who rode QBs they landed in the transfer portal — Texas ex Shane Buechele in 2019 and former Oklahoma QB Tanner Mordecai this season — to victory.
SMU celebrated its victory with receiver Rashee Rice “planting” the SMU flag on TCU’s logo at midfield. That sparked a postgame scuffle that led to Kill being injured.
In his postgame news conference, Patterson alleged that an SMU player used a helmet to injure Kill. No such video surfaced and Patterson acknowledged he couldn’t substantiate his claims the following week.
However, during that same news conference, Patterson went on to rip SMU. He wasn’t happy that SMU mocked him with his own song that he released during the pandemic titled “Take A Step Back.” He then claimed that SMU staged the entire flag-planting incident that led to Kill’s injury. SMU disputed that the flag-planting moment was staged in its own statement.
Even though a few administrators and fans weren’t happy with Patterson’s antics during this time period, the Frogs were 2-1 and still had high hopes for the season.
Hot seat monitor: Cool
Texas week
The headlines coming out during Texas week centered mostly on the beef between Patterson and SMU, not Patterson being 7-2 against the Longhorns in Big 12 play.
But TCU hoped to get back on track with a home game against UT on Oct. 2. Frogs quarterback Max Duggan had played well against the Longhorns in his career, and the thought had been that Patterson’s defense would eventually come together with a few games under its belt.
Texas, though, rode running back Bijan Robinson to a 32-27 victory over TCU. Robinson had 216 yards rushing on 35 carries. TCU star running back Zach Evans, meanwhile, finished with 113 yards rushing on 15 carries.
Patterson talked about the discrepancy of carries between the two standout backs, saying he felt 35 carries were too many, but he understood there are certain games where that kind of workload may be necessary.
Patterson felt his comments on Robinson were taken out of context. But he made additional comments a few days later that didn’t sit well with some TCU folks when he talked about the crowd for the Texas game.
“I’m frustrated that we let Longhorn fans sit down on the first row of our stadium, but I can’t do anything [about that],” he said. “Until we change that I’m not going to worry about it anymore. A lot of people are doing it so they pay for their tickets and sell them. I get it all. There’s a lot of sacrifices that are made if you want to win championships and mine is to win ballgames. If I do, maybe that doesn’t happen.”
Yes, TCU had lost two straight games to rivals at that point. Still, nobody could’ve envisioned Patterson being out of a job by the end of the month after a couple of one-score losses.
Hot seat monitor: Cool
Texas Tech week
Patterson spent part of his midweek news conference downplaying critics who had felt he’d lost his edge. TCU had been reeling on defense, allowing 32 points to Cal, 42 points to SMU and 32 points to Texas.
Patterson referenced an old column written by Jim Reeves in the Star-Telegram back in 2004 that wondered if offenses had caught up to Patterson’s defense back then. Patterson proved Reeves and others wrong the following season by going 11-1, and sounded like a coach who felt better days were ahead this season.
“For us, we have to find a way to win one,” Patterson said. “We’ve been close in two ballgames. But, in this day and age, I wouldn’t tell you 61 is old. Maybe some people think it’s old but it comes down to how you act and what you do. Most can’t do that where they work until 1 a.m. and get up at 6 a.m. and do it four days a week and still be so pleasant like I am.”
Patterson chuckled at that last line. And TCU played its best game that Saturday, Oct. 9, in Lubbock, rolling to a 52-31 victory over Texas Tech.
While TCU felt they’d be better than 3-2 at this point in the season, it wasn’t all lost. Getting to the Big 12 championship game felt somewhat within reach.
Hot seat monitor: Cool
Oklahoma week
Patterson has never defeated OU since Lincoln Riley took over in 2017, but maybe TCU could pull off an upset.
The Sooners were coming off an emotional Red River Showdown and in the midst of a quarterback change from Spencer Rattler to freshman Caleb Williams.
But TCU entered without its top running back, Zach Evans (toe injury), and a banged up Max Duggan (foot injury) at quarterback. And the Frogs’ defense had played so poorly that even comedian Jeff Foxworthy poked fun at them during ESPN’s College GameDay that Saturday Oct. 16.
It showed on the field with OU dominating in a 52-31 victory.
Despite the injuries to a few key players, this is the game where the thought of a potential coaching change entered Donati’s mind. Yes, OU is one of the top teams in the country but TCU expected to contend for a Big 12 championship this season.
Anyone who watched that game could tell the gap between the top of the league (Oklahoma) and TCU was significant. Patterson disagreed when asked about it afterward.
“We lost by five points to Texas,” he said. “If you have an older group, I don’t think you’re looking at a big difference in what we’re doing — if there’s any difference at all to be honest with you.”
But Donati pointed to this time period as being an eye-opener on the overall state of the program.
“Mid-October it became apparent that we wouldn’t meet those [preseason] expectations,” Donati said. “We started the conversation about what that would look like potentially. I don’t have an exact date, but probably mid-October.”
Hot seat monitor: Warm
West Virginia week
Even though the preseason expectations weren’t going to be met, it didn’t feel like Patterson’s job was in too much jeopardy. At least not publicly. That was until Patterson, unprompted, went off on an article written by TCU alum Matt Jennings calling for TCU to fire its longtime coach during his midweek news conference.
At the time, Jennings had less than 100 followers on his site through Medium but the story made the rounds among TCU fans on social media.
“What’s your reason to go fire Gary Patterson? I’ve been here before,” Patterson said. “It’s probably not going to be my last time. If you stay somewhere long enough, you’re going to have problems. You’re going to go through things on and off the field. If I could tell the real story on a lot of things, then you’d see I’d do a lot of things a lot differently from what we have — from offseason work, to strength coaches, to how many recruiting people we have, to all the things that we do.
“At the end of the day, those people out there that think I’m riding into the sunset would be wrong.”
A few days after that rant, TCU had a forgettable homecoming weekend. West Virginia, which had lost three straight going into the contest, handed TCU a 29-17 loss. There were plenty of empty seats at Amon G. Carter Stadium that day too.
Hot seat monitor: Hot
Kansas State week
After popping off randomly throughout the season — on NIL, on SMU, on Matt Jennings — Patterson mentioned during his K-State news conference on Oct. 26 that he would keep it “boring.”
Well, he did that. He didn’t even share a strong opinion on Texas Tech firing Matt Wells a day earlier.
By that point, the team had already been in a downward spiral and TCU officials were actively thinking about a coaching change. The mindset, though, is that TCU brass would at least wait until the end of the season to make a move.
Then the K-State game happened with Boschini making the trip. It wasn’t pretty. The Wildcats had lost three of their last four with a narrow victory over Texas Tech the week before. But K-State looked like a top 25 team against TCU.
The Frogs turned in an uninspired performance with a 31-12 loss to the Wildcats. It marked the lowest point of the season and it became clear that TCU brass would be making a change.
At the Manhattan airport following the game, according to people there, Patterson sat by himself in the terminal looking off into space as though he knew the end was near.
“It just felt different,” a source said of the scene.
Hot seat monitor: Scorching
Firing Patterson
For the longest time Patterson seemed untouchable at TCU. Who would even have the guts to fire the man who built the program into what it is today?
But Donati came to that decision following the K-State game. So did Boschini and other influential members of the TCU community.
With the team sitting at 3-5 overall and just 1-4 in the conference they were supposed to contend for just two months earlier, Donati knew he wasn’t going to offer Patterson an extension this offseason. And, given that Patterson already had the least security contract-wise of any other Big 12 coach, the time had come to make a change at the top.
Donati and Boschini met with Patterson and his wife Kelsey on Sunday, informing them that Patterson wouldn’t return as the school’s head football coach in 2022. Patterson had the option to remain on as a lame-duck coach for the rest of the season and take on a non-coaching role in 2022, but he declined.
Instead of being “fired,” the two sides mutually agreed to part ways with Kill taking over on an interim basis. The separation agreement between TCU and Patterson has not been finalized but it is expected to be by the end of the month, sources said.
One might think a conversation of this nature would lead to heated exchanges, especially given that Patterson is known for his fiery and intense nature on the sidelines Saturdays. But those in the room have gone on record to describe the meeting as “very cordial.”
“Of course it was cordial,” Patterson said, with a chuckle. “Kelsey was there.”
During that phone conversation with the Star-Telegram on Thursday night, Patterson sounded content and at peace with how everything transpired. A few even feel that Patterson is relieved given how the season spun out of control.
At the end of the day, Patterson did what he felt was in the best interest of the team, just as he’s done throughout his career. Patterson has been described over the years as being loyal to a fault and that isn’t just talk. That’s real.
As Kill said after being formally named the interim coach, “What you see sometimes is not what you get behind closed doors. There’s not a more caring person in the world and a more loyal person in the world than he is.”
Patterson has backed his assistants over the years. He’s always been about TCU and the team and he felt stepping down was in the best interest for all involved. Patterson said he felt there was too much negative “noise” surrounding the team and, as he predicted, that has quieted since his departure.
Reports that Donati offered Patterson an “ultimatum” to remain on as coach aren’t true either, Donati said. Patterson constantly talked about different changes he could make to the staff, and ways to improve, but Donati never had a conversation where he told Patterson he had to fire someone to keep his job.
In the end, Donati and TCU brass felt the necessary change was at the top. There wasn’t a change, or a combination of changes, that Patterson could do to turn it around.
And it wasn’t a singular event that led to this decision but simply something that became more apparent in the last three weeks.
Among Big 12 schools, TCU has a better record than only Texas Tech and Kansas since 2018. And Patterson didn’t help himself with his outbursts during news conferences, whether it was unsubstantiated claims against SMU or ripping fan attendance.
Patterson gave a nice speech to the team about the decision on Sunday afternoon, sources said, and Kill ran that day’s practice as the interim coach. TCU sent an email to its Board of Trustees around 6:15 p.m. Sunday to inform them that Patterson and the university would be parting ways and the Star-Telegram broke the news shortly after.
“This is not what we envisioned at all. It’s certainly not what we wanted and not what Gary wanted,” Donati said. “It’s probably easy to say that, but ultimately we have very high expectations for this program and that’s because of Gary. That’s the irony of it because he’s built this program. We weren’t meeting those expectations and he would acknowledge that as well.
“Divorce never ends well. Any time a coach or high-ranking professional leaves an organization, it’s difficult to do. Ultimately, we’ve done our best.”
Moving on
Gary Patterson didn’t head to the golf course the day after being let go. He didn’t book a trip to the beach. Instead, he showed up to work at TCU’s football offices.
Patterson remains all-in on the 2021 team and is going to help them as much as possible. On Monday, he worked with his former assistants to game plan for the Baylor game, and he’s has attended the walk-through portion of practices this week.
“Right now, I want to help my coaches and players the best I can have a good finish to this season,” Patterson told the Star-Telegram.
Patterson has not made a decision on his future plans, saying “all options are open.”
“I don’t know which direction I will go,” Patterson said.
If Patterson wants to continue coaching, he should be on the short list for several programs. Washington State, for instance, would be wise to study up on Patterson’s 8-0 record against Pac-12 schools.
In the meantime, it’s been one of the most surreal weeks in TCU history without Patterson running the program. At least he left it in unquestionably better shape than it was when he arrived.
The school’s search for its next coach says it all. In a year where bluebloods USC and LSU are in the coaching market, TCU is viewed as just a notch below as one of the top jobs in the country.
“We’re not starting from zero. That’s a credit to Gary,” Donati said. “He’s built a top 10 program. The interest we’re receiving already indicates that. This is not a rebuild. Someone is going to be able to come in here and we believe continue on that trajectory of success that we’ve had for a long time.”
