Gary Patterson

Head coach, TCU, 2001 to 2021

Now

Career arc

Bowls and playoffs: 11-6

’00L’01L’02W’03L’05W’06W’07W’08W’09L’10W’11W’12L’14W’15W’16L’17W’18W

Show all 17 games
2000Mobile Alabama BowlL 21-282001Galleryfurniture.com BowlL 9-282002Liberty BowlW 17-32003Fort Worth BowlL 31-342005Houston BowlW 27-242006Poinsettia BowlW 37-72007Texas BowlW 20-132008Poinsettia BowlW 17-162009Fiesta BowlL 10-172010Rose BowlW 21-192011Poinsettia BowlW 31-242012Buffalo Wild Wings BowlL 16-172014Peach BowlW 42-32015Alamo BowlW 47-412016Liberty BowlL 23-312017Alamo BowlW 39-372018Cheez-It BowlW 10-7

USC defensive coordinator, 2026

This winter

3%chance he leaves this winter for a head-coaching job or a bigger coordinator job — including going with his head coach if he’s hired awaySettled249th-highest of 329 FBS coordinators
0%50%+

Our poach model, on his team’s results so far, how his unit compares with the FBS average this season and last, his program’s standing and his role. Ranked against the 329 FBS coordinators with 3+ games this season. The zone words describe the market’s interest; none of them says he is leaving.

What drives his number

The biggest factors, each against the typical FBS coordinator today.

  • ▼ Lower
    A Power Four program · 91st percentile of FBS in program stature last season
  • ▼ Lower
    His defense allows 1.1 points a game fewer than the FBS average · no FBS unit on record for him last season
How good is this number? It ranks a coordinator who moves up ahead of one who stays 71 to 73% of the time, and its average matches the share who actually move. What it can’t do

Tested on every FBS coordinator from 2018 through 2025, each season scored by a model fit only on the seasons before it: from three games on, given one coordinator who moved up and one who didn’t, it ranked the one who moved ahead 71 to 73% of the time, and its average chance came within a tenth of a point of the share who actually moved.

  • Counting a coordinator who follows his hired-away head coach as moving up was decided after the model’s first results were seen.
  • Much of the signal comes through his head coach: coordinators often move because their boss is hired away. This site’s number for head coaches is now live, on each head coach’s page, but this number doesn’t use it.
  • Moves to NFL coordinator jobs are undercounted in the history it learned from; they were found mainly for coordinators with Wikipedia pages.
  • On its own it is weak at picking which coordinator lands a head-coaching job (about 60% on the same test). The number is about moving up by any route.
  • It is frozen: it learns nothing from 2026 until a deliberate refit.

Report card

Above the median on both sides of the ball — 71st percentile offense, 72nd percentile defense.

TCU, every completed season graded against the whole field, then averaged.

Offense

B+
of which —71st
efficiency — 71st percentile success rate, 2004–21
B+74th
Standard-downs success
B62nd
Passing-downs success
B+74th
Trench push (line yards)
B-50th
Red-zone scoring rate
B60th
Power-success (short yardage)
B-52nd
Ball security (giveaways per game)

Defense

B+
of which —72nd
72nd percentile SP+ defense, 2014–21 (SP+ starts 2014)
D20th
Front-7 havoc
B63rd
Secondary havoc
B69th
Stuff rate (run defense)
B-58th
Takeaways per game

Each season is his team’s percentile among every team with that stat (the share it beat), averaged over his completed seasons here; a mid-season takeover year and the season in progress aren’t graded. Letters: A+ 90th percentile and up, A 80, B+ 70, B 60, B− 50, C+ 45, C 40, C− 30, D 15, F below.