College football’s coaching carousel is spinning into overdrive after concluding the regular season.
Another vacancy surfaced Monday when UNLV fired Marcus Arroyo despite improving to 5-7 this season. The Rebels could potentially consider a prominent replacement.
The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman speculated Gary Patterson as an “interesting name” to monitor.
Patterson went 181-79 in 22 seasons with TCU. He was college football’s second-longest-tenured head coach behind Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz when fired after amid a 3-5 start last year.
The Horned Frogs are 12-0 under Sonny Dykes and likely one win away from cementing a College Football Playoff bid. Meanwhile, Patterson spent the year as a special assistant to Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian.
UNLV has only notched a winning record once in the last 20 years, going 7-6 with a Heart of Dallas Bowl loss in 2006. The Rebels went 7-23 in three seasons under Arroyo, losing his first 14 games as head coach.
Patterson started as TCU’s head coach when UNLV last won a bowl game in 2000. He led the Horned Frogs to an 11-6 bowl record and was named AP Coach of the Year twice.
Hiring Patterson would be a big move for the Mountain West Conference program.