Gary Patterson hired by Texas Football

It’s official.

After speculation began swirling in December, the courtship of Gary Patterson by Texas Football is complete.

According to multiple reports — and an official listing in the UT staff directory, Patterson has indeed been hired by the Longhorns, reuniting with Chris Del Conte in Austin as a member of second year coach Steve Sarkisian’s staff.

Patterson was confirmed to have visited the Texas Football facilities earlier this month, and days later, a job was posted on the UT website for a Special Assistant to the Head Coach. As a public university, the job had to be posted and open to the public before an offer could be extended to the likely only serious candidate.

Apparently, interviews went well.

Patterson’s presence at the Texas - Kansas State basketball game followed a Horns 247 report that the former Frog had been working with the Longhorn Football program during winter conditioning.

“Former TCU coach Gary Patterson is already working at Texas in his new role as special assistant to coach Steve Sarkisian.

According to a UT source, Patterson was getting his ID and key card on Tuesday to begin working at UT, a school he had a 7-3 career record against while the head coach at TCU.”

It’s been an interesting few months for Patterson, who of course has a statue in front of Amon G Carter Stadium, a facility that could well bear his name someday. After a quarter century in Fort Worth, seeing him in Burnt Orange will be an uncomfortable sight for Frog fans; after years of dominating the Longhorns, seeing him help UT against the Frogs will be hard to watch, to say the least. But Patterson, who chose to leave TCU in October after reportedly being asked to stay for the remainder of the 2021 season and take an advisory role after, wanted to coach again. And Texas presented an in-state opportunity with a system and staff he was familiar with.

It might kind of suck for TCU fans, but it makes a ton of sense for Patterson and Steve Sarkisian.

Reactions to the news was mixed; while most TCU fans are happy GP will stay in coaching, few are excited that he will be doing so with an in-conference rival.

The most interesting development is absolutely how quickly Texas fans — who have taken every opportunity to mock Patterson over the years before begrudgingly showing him respect after years of getting their rear ends handed to them by him — jumped on board with his Judas turn.

TCU and Texas will face off on November 12th in Austin.