As soon as the news started to spread Tuesday that Texas has hired Arizona State AD Steve Patterson for the same job in Austin, jokes about Todd Graham‘s next coaching gig were just as quick to follow by witty folks on Twitter. The jokes came easily given Graham’s track record and multiple stops in his coaching career, but he seems to have settled in at Arizona State.
It turns out Patterson will not be allowed to hire anybody currently employed by Arizona State though, according to Arizona State’s president Michael Crow.
Crow, who confirmed the news and released a statement Tuesday, said he allowed Patterson to explore the opportunity to leave ASU for Texas but had at least one requirement.
“For him to be hired by Texas (specifically), I had to give permission for that,” Crow said in a report by The Arizona Republic. “As a function of our agreement, he’s not allowed to hire someone from ASU.”
So forget all of those Graham to Texas jokes. If Patterson decides to head in a new direction with the Longhorns football program after this season, Graham will be off the table. Of course, the biggest question is what will happen to the Texas football program moving forward. With the Longhorns currently undefeated in Big 12 play, Texas is in position to clinch a Big 12 championship and reach a BCS bowl game as a result under current head coach Mack Brown. Doing just that would be pretty incredible given how the Longhorns were pretty much left in the rubble early on in the season.
Would Brown go out on top and hand the program over to someone else? Will Patterson take control and force Brown out as head coach? Will the two reach a mutual decision on how to handle any potential transition? We will just have to wait to find out.