Texas Football: Gary Patterson tabbed as a candidate for the UNLV job

Bruce Feldman of The Athletic tweeted out an interesting and weird possibility for the next landing spot for first-year Texas football special assistant to the head coach and the former longtime TCU Horned Frogs head coach Gary Patterson on Nov. 29. Feldman mentioned in a tweet that Patterson is a name “to keep an eye on” for the UNLV Rebels head coaching job.

The UNLV job opened up this week with the reported firing of third-year head coach Marcus Arroyo following a five-win 2022 regular season for the Rebels.

I will say that the firing of Arroyo was interesting since he had the program trending up in terms of the year-over-year improvement in win totals. UNLV was winless in Arroyo’s first year at the helm as the head coach in 2020.

And then, the Rebels improved by a mark of two wins in 2021. That capped with a three-win improvement, to rack up five victories total during the 2022 regular season.

It did seem like Arroyo was at least progressing year over year at UNLV. Granted, UNLV did cap the regular season by missing out on bowl eligibility thanks to six losses in its final seven games.

The Athletic reporter tabs Texas football special assistant Gary Patterson as someone to watch for the UNLV job

UNLV also has a new athletic director in the past year that was not the one that originally hired Arroyo as head coach.

Moreover, it is weird to me that Feldman tabbed Patterson as a name to watch for the UNLV job. I believe there will be more appealing opportunities that come Patterson’s way in the near future. And I don’t even think that the UNLV job would end up paying him that much more than the special assistant position he currently holds at Texas.

Nonetheless, it is worth monitoring the rumors flying around the coaching carousel right now given the chaos that is transpiring right now and will likely continue to do so in the next few weeks.

Patterson and head coach Steve Sarkisian saw the Longhorns finish up the regular season with a record of 8-4 (6-3 Big 12) following a 38-27 win on Black Friday over the Baylor Bears. Texas now awaits its postseason fate in the midst of conference championship week.