Gary Patterson still finding challenges coaching at TCU
Gary Patterson has spent the past 16 Decembers as the TCU head football coach, and only twice have the Horned Frogs not been preparing for a bowl game.
That means extra film to watch, extra practices to orchestrate and extra media sessions to endure, in this case ahead of the Jan. 2 Valero Alamo Bowl against Oregon.
The game prep comes on top of players taking finals, coaches spreading out for recruiting, and recruits heading to campus.
Don’t forget that schools tried to poach his co-offensive coordinators, one program successfully hired away a co-defensive coordinator, and schools even contacted Patterson to see if they could steal him away.
“December’s my toughest month,” Patterson said Tuesday.
Finally on Thursday and Friday, Christmas Eve and Christmas, off days were scheduled for the 11th-ranked Frogs, and for the first time in three weeks Patterson could catch his breath and put away the Oregon game film.
Well, he might not have gone that far.
The fire to coach still burns for the 55-year-old Patterson, and it still burns at TCU nearly two decades after he arrived from New Mexico as the defensive coordinator on Dennis Franchione’s staff.
The never-say-never Patterson won’t declare when he intends to stop coaching, if he’ll retire at TCU or if there’s a job out there, say Notre Dame or a big-time state school that recruits dream about and that doesn’t need him to constantly raise funds for the program, that could lure him away from his throne in Fort Worth.
But Patterson is still overseeing his football empire. Like the Jelly of the Month Club, that’s the gift that keeps on giving to TCU and its growing fandom.
Despite the inroads TCU has made the past two seasons, Patterson has said his job remains challenging. It’s what keeps him going.
“It’s been a lot of work up to this point,” Patterson said. “But I told them that once we got in the Big 12, the real work started. We’re four years into this league. We’ll see how it goes.”
Anyone who has seen a TCU practice, maybe a booster or a reporter back in the days when practices were open to the media, has seen the Patterson fire. Practices aren’t leisure time, as he takes the field instead of watching from a tower or from the sidelines.
What the cameras capture of him on game day is nothing compared to one practice, replete with the strongly worded messages that make his voice raspy and enough sweat to irrigate Amon G. Carter Stadium.
He’s not the spring chicken he used to be, when he started out 6-6 in 2001 and had absolutely no doubt that he would be fired. He turns 56 on Feb. 13, has delivered the Frogs from outsider to Power 5 power, and owns the same kind of job security as Nick Saban and Bob Stoops.
Yet, he keeps going strong, not resting on all he has accomplished, and, at least when speaking publicly, has set no timetable to hang up his whistle.
“You like to pay your house payment and eat,” Patterson said.
With a salary of $3.5 million (and possibly growing if he leverages other schools’ interest in him into a pay raise), the house and food are taken care of. But being the king of TCU, which comes with a much shinier crown than even four years ago, doesn’t mean the job is much easier.
Being in the Big 12 is helping TCU get into recruiting doors that never opened for them back when they sat at the kids’ table. The task now is to make sure TCU is the last one in a five-star recruit’s living room more often.
Patterson is realistic about the Frogs’ needs, primarily size, and their lack of depth was exposed this season as the injuries piled up. In fairness, not many programs could have withstood the rash of injuries that hit TCU, but Patterson knows college football isn’t fair.
“It’s taken some of these teams in this league 10 or 11 years,” he said. “I said it was going to take five. We’re on four. We’ve got to keep getting bigger and faster and to where you don’t care when your twos [second-teamers] go in.”
The issues are what the Frogs must overcome if they’re to reach the top of Patterson’s pyramid. That’s that national championship, which seems entirely within reach but also entirely out of it with the CFP selection committee’s week-to-week changes in logic and its knack for having TCU in its blind spot.
Maybe the Frogs should join the Big Ten.
The players also help Patterson’s tank stay full. After a week of practice under his thumb, a game is a break for them, but he will defend them and the program — sometimes infamously — whenever he feels the need.
Usually, it’s when he sees a challenge that needs to be met. He still sees his job at TCU as a challenge, and that’s what keeps him going.
“If you don’t, you need to quit,” Patterson said. “It’s hard to win at this level and in this league. You better keep pounding on the wall.”
Jeff Wilson: 817-390-7760, @JeffWilson_FWST
TCU vs. Oregon
5:45 p.m. Jan. 2, ESPN
Alamo Bowl, San Antonio
This story was originally published December 24, 2015 at 2:18 PM with the headline "Gary Patterson still finding challenges coaching at TCU."