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- Gary Patterson is now at Texas.
- If that isn’t weird enough, he is throwing ‘Hook Em’ with his former recruit at TCU who he is trying to get to transfer to the Longhorns.
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Gary Patterson being at Texas and wearing burnt orange is a strange sight that is hard to fully comprehend. Gary Patterson being at Texas and wearing burnt orange while recruiting players that he already recruited to TCU is even more bizarre.
Over the weekend, the Longhorns played host to defensive end transfer Ochaun Mathis for an unofficial visit. Mathis stands 6-foot-5, 257 pounds and is considered a four-star EDGE prospect by On3 Sports.
Out of high school, Mathis committed to play for Patterson at TCU. In three years with the Horned Frogs, he made quite the impression.
Mathis earned Second-Team All-Big 12 honors as both a sophomore and junior and will be a huge, immediate-impact player at defensive end wherever he is to end up. More than likely, that will be in Austin.
After entering the transfer portal, Mathis’ ties to Patterson are believed to make Texas the favorite for his commitment. Patterson was fired by TCU at the end of the regular season and joined Steve Sarkisian’s staff as an analyst with the Longhorns.
According to his top-five, Mathis is down to USC, Texas, Ole Miss, Penn State and Nebraska. There is very little chance that he does not reunite with his former head coach, stay in-state, and commit to play at Texas.
Before he makes things official, however, Mathis wanted to see what he is getting himself into. He stopped by campus over the weekend and met with the staff.
Mathis took some recruiting photos while there and one stands out in particular.
Over the course of the past few years, recruiting has become heavily influenced by social media. Twitter, Instagram and TikTok have factored into recruiting since they first came into existence, but their role has grown significantly in the last 24/36 months.
Every school in the nation is trying to one-up their competitors when it comes to pomp and circumstance. As a result, there have been some very strange viral moments to come from the recruiting world in recent months.
Brian Kelly made waves by dancing awkwardly with a five-star quarterback and grinding on a recruit who committed to Alabama. Meanwhile, Dabo Swinney is sitting on the lap of high schoolers.
The latest recruiting photo to make waves in the college football world came from Mathis on Sunday. He posted a series of pictures from his trip to Austin and there was one that would have made your brain hurt six months ago.
Texas has a photo room that is complete with LED lights and makes for some really great looking pictures. In one of the shots, Patterson is seen crouching next to Mathis throwing the ‘Hook ‘Em’ hand sign.
Unofficial was unforgettable‼️🤘🏾 pic.twitter.com/8I7ALKMkzj
— Ochaun Mathis (@OchaunDevon) March 7, 2022
Patterson, who spent 21 years as the head coach of TCU and 23 years with the program, has spent more than two decades hating Texas. Now he is wearing burnt orange, throwing the horns, and recruiting a player that he recruited to TCU to Texas.
What a world.
Fortunately, although there is some cringe factor to Patterson’s photo, it was fairly tame. Nothing like Swinney or Kelly.
However, with that being said, Patterson’s photo epitomizes the new world of college football. Kliff Kingsbury recently came out and said that he would rather do “anything” than go back to coaching on the collegiate level, primarily because of recruiting.
Recruiting has always been a weird, wild place, but social media has only made it that much more complicated and crazy. Patterson throwing horns with Mathis is the perfect example.