TCU football: 5 replacements for Gary Patterson with the Horned Frogs
By Ethan Lee
As legendary TCU football coach Gary Patterson is out as the head coach Fort Worth, where will the TCU Horned Frogs turn to find their new head coach?
The TCU Horned Frogs are officially without a permanent head coach. Gary Patterson will be leaving the Horned Frogs and TCU’s leadership will be trusting Jerry Kill to finish out the remainder of the 2021 TCU football season
Patterson was the head coach in Fort Worth for a long time and it’ll be difficult to follow up someone as accomplished as him. It’s generally a difficult thing to follow up a legendary head coach, but a school like TCU will have plenty of options.
That said, there are five names the Horned Frogs must consider. Here are five coaches TCU should take a look at:
TCU football: 5 coaches the Horned Frogs must consider to replace Gary Patterson
5. Tom Herman
Hey, TCU, take a look at a former Texas Longhorns head coach. There’s no real harm in considering the guy who was able to get the Longhorns back into prominent bowl games on a consistent basis. Herman wasn’t able to turn Texas into a national title contender, but he did win four straight bowl games with the Longhorns, including a Sugar Bowl against the Georgia Bulldogs.
Herman was also able to beat the Oklahoma Sooners in 2018. He’s probably not the perfect candidate, but if he could surround himself with quality coordinators and assistant coaches, and given a decent amount of time, maybe Herman could be a consistent winner for the Horned Frogs. After all, he designed some brilliant offenses for Ohio State and his Houston Cougars were able to go 22-4 in two seasons.
4. Hugh Freeze
It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes for Liberty Flames head coach Hugh Freeze to end up at a more prestigious coaching gig.
Freeze may have left Ole Miss in a mess with multiple scandals, but he has since been able to clean things up a bit. Will TCU give him a chance considering how effective Freeze is at winning? Before running into trouble with the NCAA (and then some other off-the-field scandals), Freeze was winning at a high level with Ole Miss, including back-to-back wins over Alabama in 2014 and 2015.
Right now, Freeze is winning at a high level with Liberty. He’s compiled a 25-8 record with the Flames since 2019 and that should be good enough for TCU’s consideration.