Gary Patterson: Allure of SEC Won't Be Enough to Pry Coach Away from TCU

Stop me if you've heard this one before. There's an opening for head coach at another college football program and TCU's Gary Patterson is a candidate.

We've seen this show before, and we know how it ends, with Coach Patterson sitting in his office in Fort Worth, Texas—nowhere else.

The latest chatter comes courtesy of the Star-Telegram's Mac Engel, who notes that at least three SEC schools—Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee—have interest in bringing Patterson on board to turn their respective football programs around.

It's an inarguable fact that the SEC is one of the most high-profile conferences around, home to some of the country's most storied football programs and a major draw for the top high school players in the country.

But it's not as if the Big 12 is a barren wasteland like an abandoned town, chock full of tumbleweeds and rusty locks on decrepit buildings with Sons of the Pioneers playing in the background.

Like the SEC, it's a high-profile conference with plenty of history and yearly relevance when it comes to contending for the National Championship and competing in high-profile bowl games.

For an established head coach in the conference, it makes little sense to go from one conference to another unless it's for a storied program. For example, moving from Kentucky to Texas makes sense, just as a step from Baylor to LSU would.

But a move from TCU, where Patterson is treated like a king, knows the ins and outs of the school and has the support of everyone associated with the university to rebuild one of the programs previously mentioned?

I don't see the appeal.

So while the chatter will continue throughout the rest of the fall—and winter—there's little chance that anyone besides Gary Patterson is leading the Horned Frogs in spring practice.