Texas’ pursuit of hiring Gary Patterson moving slowly

There is a lot of smoke of late surrounding the possibility of the Texas football program and head coach Steve Sarkisian making the move to hire the former TCU Horned Frogs longtime head coach Gary Patterson on the defensive coaching staff. Texas would obviously welcome the addition of Patterson to the defensive coaching staff, especially after some of the massive struggles on that side of the ball in the season that was.

Any discussions between the Longhorns staff and Patterson isn’t moving along too quickly, though. It would appear that Patterson is exploring his options of where he wants to go in his post-TCU days. Whether that means he is waiting it out to see which head coaching opportunities could come his way after bowl season, or he might want to take a coordinator role somewhere, we don’t know as of yet.

But it is clear that Patterson is taking a very patient approach to this process. It appears that the Texas staff and Patterson spoke this week, but a 247Sports report on Dec. 16 mentions that there’s “nothing determined” in these discussions as of yet.

Here’s more on what Sark had to say about the potential discussions with Patterson in his weekly press conference on Dec. 15.

Texas football reportedly not making much progress of late with Gary Patterson

"“He’s done a fantastic job. Really built that program into what it is and to make it one of the more desirable jobs in the country, I give him a lot of credit for that. I know that he’s trying to figure out in what capacity does he want to continue this profession. We have not made any determination on if we would want him here or if he would want to be here, but the reality of it is there’s definitely a level of respect for the job that he’s done at TCU.”"

Sark seems to be playing this in such a way that he’s not indicating open interest in hiring Patterson. Granted, he has always spoken highly of Patterson and shows his coaching ability a ton of respect whenever talking about him.

One other point to note is that it sounds like if Patterson were to join the Texas defensive coaching staff, that it would be in a role that is more than an analyst. But it would also be in a role that would not be replacing current co-defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Pete Kwiatkowski.

Texas had one of the worst defenses in program history, which performed especially poorly in conference play, in the season that was. Something needs to give on this side of the ball, and it seems like adding Patterson would do nothing but help the Longhorns’ woes in this regard.