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Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi, who will have the final say about who will be named successor to Glen Mason, has tried to keep quiet the names of coaches who are being interviewed.

Still, the identities of some of the candidates -- who are being interviewed by Maturi and associate athletic directors Marc Ryan and Tom Wistrcill -- have leaked out.

And one of the most impressive of that group is Texas Christian coach Gary Patterson, 46, who is 54-20 in six seasons and has had four 10-victory seasons over the past five years.

Yes, the Gophers hired a former TCU coach before in Jim Wacker, who was 7-4 with the Horned Frogs in 1991, the year before he came to the Gophers. But Wacker was only 40-58-2 in nine seasons at TCU. Mason was a leading candidate at the time, but after being interviewed in Chicago on the same day as Wacker, Mason withdrew as a candidate.

Wacker, one of the great people in the coaching business, was 16-39 in five seasons with the Gophers before he was replaced by Mason.

TCU doesn't play one of the tougher schedules in college football as a member of the Mountain West Conference, which also includes Air Force, Brigham Young, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, UNLV, Utah and Wyoming.

The past year the Horned Frogs went 11-2, losing only to BYU and Utah in their conference, and won the Poinsettia Bowl, beating Northern Illinois 37-7.

However, one of the Horned Frogs' impressive nonconference victories was a 12-3 victory at home over Texas Tech, the team that came from 31 points down to beat the Gophers 44-41 in overtime at the Insight Bowl. The Red Raiders, who finished the season ranked sixth overall in the NCAA in total offense at 447.9 yards per game and had 548 against the Gophers, were held to only 242 yards by TCU.

However, to hire Patterson, someone would have to pay TCU $1 million, the price the school has set for a buyout of its coach.

Patterson didn't become head coach until 2000, moving up to the top job after being the defensive coordinator at TCU.

Patterson and Montana's Bobby Hauck are the two current head coaches whose names have been most prominently tied to the Gophers job.

A sleeper minority candidate could be Notre Dame offensive coordinator Michael Haywood, who has been at Louisiana State and Texas before joining the Irish. But no doubt in my mind Southern California offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin made a good impression with his interview in Dallas.

Alvarez's suggestions

If Maturi asked Wisconsin AD Barry Alvarez for suggestions on whom to interview, Alvarez -- who as Badgers coach turned that program into a Big Ten champion and worked with Maturi at Wisconsin -- would suggest the following three:

"Dan McCarney [former Iowa State coach] is as good a sales person and would do an unbelievable job of tying up that state, bringing that state together," Alvarez said. "He'd do the same type of job that Lou Holtz did with each state."Paul Chryst [Badgers offensive coordinator] is a great football coach, one of the outstanding offensive minds in college football.

"Frank Solich [former Nebraska coach now at Ohio University] is a proven winner. He took over for a legend at Nebraska [Tom Osborne], had an unbelievable record, was let go because the athletic director wanted his own guy. He goes to Ohio U, which has never won, and in two years has them in a bowl game. He could do a good job."

I also believe McCarney would be a good candidate. However, the fact that he resigned from the Cyclones after a 4-8 season likely eliminates him.

Alvarez said the Gophers job is very appealing. He said he believes you can win at Minnesota, and one of his top three could do a great job. "I think it's a very, very good job," he said.