When he needs it, TCU football head coach Gary Patterson will have a very experienced offensive voice on which to lean.
Following up on speculation that surfaced last month, the TCU football program announced Wednesday that Jerry Kill has joined Patterson’s extended football staff. Kill won’t be one of Patterson’s 10 on-field assistants, Rather, he will serve as “special assistant to the head coach in charge of the offense.”
Kill will be charged with evaluating everything as it pertains to the offensive side of the football for TCU football.
In October of 2015, Kill was forced to step down as Minnesota’s head football coach because of health issues related to ongoing epileptic seizures. Just over two years later, seizures again forced Kill to step down from his coaching duties, this time as the offensive coordinator at Rutgers. In September of last year, Kill joined the Virginia Tech support staff as the assistant to the head coach for Justin Fuente.
Along with Kill’s addition to the off-field staff, TCU football also announced tweaks to Patterson’s on-field staff.
- Doug Meacham returns as inside receivers coach and tight ends coach.
- Bryan Applewhite has been named as running backs coach.
- Jarrett Anderson will move from inside receivers/tight ends coach to the offensive line, a position he coached for the Horned Frogs from 2014-16.
Meacham left TCU in January of 2017 to become the offensive coordinator at Kansas. After adding quarterback coach duties at the Big 12 school a year later, he was fired in October of 2018. At the time of his hiring by TCU football, Meacham was set to serve as the offensive coordinator of the XFL’s St. Louis BattleHawks.
The past five seasons, Applewhite served as the running backs coach at Colorado State. Prior to that, he was on the coaching staff at Louisiana-Monroe for five seasons (2010-14). From 2003-08, he was running backs coach at Wyoming.