USA TODAY International Edition
FROGS POISED FOR NEXT LEAP
Patterson sees no reason TCU can’t challenge for title
“I’ve learned about
FORT WORTH Twitter trolls,” Gary Patterson says, and for a moment this seems like perhaps the most unlikely thing he could ever say. You’ve seen Gary Patterson, haven’t you?
You’ve noticed the sometimes aggressive sideline comportment that he wishes didn’t define him. You’ve heard about how the 53- year- old TCU coach is a defensive savant, who has done as good a job as anyone of slowing the spread offenses that are taking over college football. You’ve heard him take passive- aggressive shots at other coaches, publicly criticize colleagues for where they’ve voted his team in the polls and come off like one of those maniacal, old school types who establish hard lines between friends and foes.
So it seems curious that Patterson is here in his office talking so seriously about something as trivial as his growing presence on Twitter and the trolls — mostly fans of other schools — who use it to anonymously taunt him. But then Patterson explains and opens a window into how he has taken No. 20 TCU from an irrelevant, conference- hopping football program into a stable member of the Big 12 with enough resources to compete against anybody.
“Some people are scared to do Twitter. I knew I had to do it,” Patterson says. “I didn’t just put my toe in the water; I jumped in and I learned.”
NEVER STANDING STILL
A conversation with Patterson can go a thousand directions; he rarely completes a thought without veering into more. But connecting everything is Patterson’s embrace of evolution, which often runs against his admittedly conservative nature. Whether it’s buying into the power of Twitter, becoming a leader in uniform designs or putting a cryosauna in the training room, Patterson believes that even a program as successful as his needs to reinvent itself constantly.
“The job description has changed,” Patterson says. “In 2008, I’m trying to win ballgames saying, ‘ Why does a uniform make a difference?’ Well, it does. They didn’t tell me about raising money, all the things that go outside of being a ball coach. ... Until you do it yourself, you have no idea. You write your own manual.”
And now, as Patterson enters his 13th season as a head coach, his job description is in the midst of perhaps the biggest change of all. TCU is no longer a football left- behind fighting the inequities of the Bowl Championship Series system. It’s no longer a second- class citizen in the state of Texas with inferior facilities and lagging attendance. It no longer has to persuade recruits in the state to play in the Mountain West.
TCU won big when it had none of those advantages, selling, as Patterson says, a brand he likened to 7- Up.
“They became king of the un- colas,” he says. “They climbed their own mountain.”
But now that TCU has reached the Big 12, with a sparkling stadium and plush amenities for players, Patterson’s job is to keep pushing his program forward while convincing everyone around him that the steepest hill has yet to be climbed.
That’s not necessarily easy when you’re two seasons removed from a Rose Bowl victory.
“Some of the alumni here, they’re satisfied we’re back in the Big 12 playing those schools,” Patterson says. “For me, I think we just hit another plateau. My whole drive is to win a Big 12 championship and play for a national championship, and we haven’t done either of those. We’ve worked hard to get where we are, but the real work starts now.”
AS COMPETITIVE AS EVER
Ask anyone around TCU for the secret that got it into the Big 12, and there’s one answer: It’s Patterson and the 77- 13 record in seven seasons as a Mountain West member. Many times he could have left, but instead of taking a premier job somewhere else, he created one in Fort Worth.
The transition has not been free of hurdles. TCU went 7- 6 last season, losing all four of its home Big 12 games. In early October, quarterback Casey Pachall was sent to an inpatient rehab facility to deal with substance abuse issues after he was arrested and charged with drunken driving. Eight months earlier, four football players were dismissed after a campuswide drug bust.
The confluence of circumstances led some in the industry to wonder if the Horned Frogs had perhaps lost their edge. Memphis coach Justin Fuente, who worked under Patterson for five seasons, said that notion would be impossible to fathom.
“They may join the Big 12, they may sign recruits with more stars or whatever, but as long as Gary Patterson is there, that underlying core will never change,” Fuente says. “He’s as dialed in and focused today as his first year when he was fighting for his job security.”
All signs point to plenty of edge at TCU. Patterson took a thinly veiled shot at LSU coach Les Miles for his handling of running back Jeremy Hill’s discipline, then tried to walk it back, then put one of his suspended players ( defensive end Devonte Fields) back on the depth chart for Saturday’s game vs. LSU. He said he wouldn’t name a starting quarterback — Pachall or Trevone Boykin — until kickoff vs. No. 13 LSU.
And whether it’s talking more about his Twitter usage or his guitar playing, Patterson spent a lot of time this offseason talking about the side of him fans don’t often see. As long as he’s at TCU, change will never stop.
“I think my role has changed in the Big 12 because, yeah, we still want to be undefeated, but in the Mountain West you had to win 11, 12 ballgames to get any kind of respect,” Patterson says. “Now, they’re saying we can’t win in the Big 12, so as soon as we can prove we can do that, then I think you open the doors.”