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Dave Wilson, ESPN Staff Writer
Former TCU head coach Gary Patterson, hired in February as a consultant at Baylor, is no longer in that role, the school said on Friday.
“Baylor Football and Gary Patterson have jointly concluded their official partnership,” the school said in a statement. “Gary joined us as a senior consultant in February, and he has been a tremendous asset to the team, providing valuable insights and expertise. We are truly grateful for everything he has contributed and wish him all the best as he embarks on the next chapter of his storied career.”
Patterson spent the 2022 season as a special assistant at Texas to Steve Sarkisian before stepping away following the season and was not on a staff in 2023.
Patterson told ESPN Central Texas on Friday that he had been pondering his role since June, saying he talked to Aranda, who is taking over defensive play-calling duties this season, about the possibility of moving on.
“It’s a little bit different scenario than Texas when I was an analyst/consultant there, because the head coach was on the offensive side,” Patterson told the radio station. “Dave stepping back in to become the defensive coordinator and doing all that, I just kind of felt like I’d taken them as far as I could take them as far as working with them. So they could go do their thing and I could be out of the way.”
Patterson said the move wasn’t as sudden as it seemed.
“I kind of thought I was a little bit of distraction when I was at Texas when it got to a certain time — so I kind of felt like that could happen here again,” he said. “I think I told them everything I could and now they needed to go do it. … It’s come to a point in time where I just felt like I thought I was doing the right thing for Baylor and for Gary Patterson.”
Baylor went 12-2 with a Big 12 title and a Sugar Bowl win over Ole Miss in 2021, but is 9-16 over the past two seasons. Patterson’s arrival was part of an offseason in which Aranda replaced offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes with Jake Spavital, himself a former Texas State head coach.
Aranda, who has said he studied tapes of Patterson’s defenses as a young coach starting out, saw Patterson as another experienced coach who would take on a role as a senior-level strategic consultant.
Patterson, the winningest coach in TCU history, parted ways with the school late in the 2021 season after the Horned Frogs got off to a 3-5 start.
For his career, he was 181-79, including a historic Rose Bowl win over Wisconsin after the 2010 season when the Frogs were still in the Mountain West.
While he has said for the past few years that he still hopes to coach, he said this is the end of end of consulting roles for him, though he said he’s always a phone call away for Baylor.
“I’m not going to go help anybody else,” Patterson said. “I’ve been doing this a long time, built a reputation of doing the right things.”
