The Next Level

There’s nothing obvious about Gary Patterson’s background that would suggest he could be one of the nation’s hottest college football coaches. There’s nothing that stands out on a life resume that starts with growing up in a small Kansas town, playing Juco ball on an academic scholarship, walking on and playing special teams for a perennial college football loser, coaching at places most college football fans have never even heard of and working his way up the coaching ladder one small step at a time. Then one day, fans, media and other college football observers look up, and here is Patterson on national television, running, jumping, yelling, grinding, working, as his Texas Christian Horned Frogs win yet another game, contend for conference championships and threaten to crash the Bowl Championship Series party hosted by the big dogs of college football, and wonder, “where did