Yesterday, GP really talked a lot about his staying at TCU and deciding not to coach elsewhere. The quote I'm referring to is copied below. As one who has tried to decipher his press conferences over the years, I think the following:
1. He did speak to boosters, and possibly boosters who are good friends, regarding the Texas A&M job. Possibly even RC Slocum was the primary booster contact for Aggy.
2. He considered the changes that would bring to his life and career, both good and bad. A change of scenery was attractive to him based on the excitement of it all but was also a negative because he couldn't achieve his goal as easily there.
3. He and his wife decided that he could win a natty easier here. Too much to change at A&M culture-wise
4. He got upset in reading the tweets or articles saying that GP was not interested in A&M, because that is not true, and he felt maybe the guys he was speaking to at A&M would feel like they were played.
5. He gave his statement so that nobody would think that he played anybody, but that he seriously considered Aggy and decided against it.
6. I think that had he been silent over that weekend, the Aggy smoke would spread into the media and put GP in a very public position of having to say "no" to Aggy. TCU wanted him to wait until Monday for bigger media impact and not have the news buried on a Friday. GP overruled and said release
it now.
7. I imagine his consideration of Aggy was more serious than we ever realized. I think we got some smoke on the board about Aggie boosters because they were thinking they may have really made some headway with GP. And they were right, they really did. Ultimately he decided to stay, thank goodness. But GP gave them due consideration before saying "no".
Here is the quote:
“I read articles like, ‘Gary Patterson was never interested in A&M.’ I would never ever say anything bad about A&M, or Tennessee, or any of the jobs that came open. To be honest with you, my wife sit down and say you know, it takes a lot, we want to win a national championship here, but it takes a lot of energy. You’ve got to make sure that if you’re gonna take a job, that you can do the best job you can of changing that job to do what you need to do.
And the bottom line is, I thought I could do a better job here than I could go do anything else. TCU has been loyal to me, and the people have been loyal to me, and we have everything in place to do all that.
But to come out and say, I read an article that said I wasn’t interested, I didn’t say any of the above. R.C. Slocum is a great friend of mine. You can go down the list, but I have a lot of friends here, and so we chose [TCU].
You know, the only reason I said I wanted to say I signed an extension on Friday is because a lot of them wanted to wait until Monday when there wasn’t anything going on. I said, ‘no, I don’t want to wait until Monday.’ Then I do have to say ‘No.’ I need to do the right thing here. The right thing was to say, we signed an extension, we’re going to be Horned Frogs, so everyone else can do what they need to do. But it has nothing to with what kind of programs they are, or I choose this one.
We always gotta make someone be the bad guy. They have a great tradition, they have a great program, they have all of the above. So just let it be that Kelsey and I just chose that we wanted to stay here...Why do I need to change?
And there have probably been some times when I’ve thought about it, because you want something different, you want to do something different, or you want another challenge, you want to do all that. I’ve got challenges, I just got to look at the team I’m watching on film right now. That’s enough of a challenge.”
1. He did speak to boosters, and possibly boosters who are good friends, regarding the Texas A&M job. Possibly even RC Slocum was the primary booster contact for Aggy.
2. He considered the changes that would bring to his life and career, both good and bad. A change of scenery was attractive to him based on the excitement of it all but was also a negative because he couldn't achieve his goal as easily there.
3. He and his wife decided that he could win a natty easier here. Too much to change at A&M culture-wise
4. He got upset in reading the tweets or articles saying that GP was not interested in A&M, because that is not true, and he felt maybe the guys he was speaking to at A&M would feel like they were played.
5. He gave his statement so that nobody would think that he played anybody, but that he seriously considered Aggy and decided against it.
6. I think that had he been silent over that weekend, the Aggy smoke would spread into the media and put GP in a very public position of having to say "no" to Aggy. TCU wanted him to wait until Monday for bigger media impact and not have the news buried on a Friday. GP overruled and said release
it now.
7. I imagine his consideration of Aggy was more serious than we ever realized. I think we got some smoke on the board about Aggie boosters because they were thinking they may have really made some headway with GP. And they were right, they really did. Ultimately he decided to stay, thank goodness. But GP gave them due consideration before saying "no".
Here is the quote:
“I read articles like, ‘Gary Patterson was never interested in A&M.’ I would never ever say anything bad about A&M, or Tennessee, or any of the jobs that came open. To be honest with you, my wife sit down and say you know, it takes a lot, we want to win a national championship here, but it takes a lot of energy. You’ve got to make sure that if you’re gonna take a job, that you can do the best job you can of changing that job to do what you need to do.
And the bottom line is, I thought I could do a better job here than I could go do anything else. TCU has been loyal to me, and the people have been loyal to me, and we have everything in place to do all that.
But to come out and say, I read an article that said I wasn’t interested, I didn’t say any of the above. R.C. Slocum is a great friend of mine. You can go down the list, but I have a lot of friends here, and so we chose [TCU].
You know, the only reason I said I wanted to say I signed an extension on Friday is because a lot of them wanted to wait until Monday when there wasn’t anything going on. I said, ‘no, I don’t want to wait until Monday.’ Then I do have to say ‘No.’ I need to do the right thing here. The right thing was to say, we signed an extension, we’re going to be Horned Frogs, so everyone else can do what they need to do. But it has nothing to with what kind of programs they are, or I choose this one.
We always gotta make someone be the bad guy. They have a great tradition, they have a great program, they have all of the above. So just let it be that Kelsey and I just chose that we wanted to stay here...Why do I need to change?
And there have probably been some times when I’ve thought about it, because you want something different, you want to do something different, or you want another challenge, you want to do all that. I’ve got challenges, I just got to look at the team I’m watching on film right now. That’s enough of a challenge.”
