Sid Hartman: Patterson has best résumé among Gophers candidates

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.

Alvarez said he enjoyed doing television commentary for FOX Sports at the BCS Championship Game and the Fiesta Bowl, and that the network liked what he did, so look for him to do more.

Hassell impresses

The Timberwolves had won three consecutive overtime games before losing Wednesday to the Clippers, and superstar Kevin Garnett said he is starting to like what is going on with the team.

"I think we're playing well right now, probably not to our full potential, but we're consistent with what we're doing and we're winning games with our defense right now, which is a good thing," he said.

"We've been together for a while now. We know what we can do, we know the things that we need to work on, but most importantly we know that we need to be consistent in anything that we do."

Garnett sang the praises of Trenton Hassell, who has been a big contributor to the team's recent success. In Saturday's 109-98 victory over New Jersey at Target Center, Hassell had 13 points and five assists in 41 minutes.

"Trenton's playing well for us now, he's one of the keys and the reasons why we're winning. He's active, he's definitely been aggressive, and in order for us to go forward we're going to need that. We're just clicking right now, and we've got to continue to figure out a way to keep this rhythm going.

Continuing on Hassell, Garnett said: "He's making it not only easier on myself but the other big men too. ... He works hard on both ends, guards the best player on the other end, gives me a break sometimes, and I was very, very, very much grateful for him; he's playing very well."

Jottings

There has been talk in the media about some unhappy players in the Vikings locker room during the past season. "You know what, it's one thing when you're winning games when you're 4-2, and it's another thing when you're 6-10 and nobody's happy," coach Brad Childress said. "Nobody's satisfied, nobody's content, it doesn't feel good, it doesn't wear well. These guys work for six months to play to win, and of course we didn't hear any of those grumblings early on." ... Vikings quarterback coach Kevin Rogers, who had been mentioned as a candidate to become offensive coordinator at the University of Miami, has informed Childress that he is definitely remaining with the Vikings.

Indianapolis beat Baltimore 15-6 in Saturday's AFC playoff game coached between Tony Dungy and Brian Billick. The two served together on Dennis Green's Vikings staff between 1992 and'95, during which the Vikings went 38-26 in the regular season.

The loss of big-time fundraiser Mike Halloran to a similar fundraising job in Dallas is a big blow to the Gophers program at a time where it still has lot of money to raise. However, the word is that Halloran was able to double his salary.

In a mock draft posted online Jan. 6, Peter Schrager of FOXSports.com has the Vikings taking defensive end Quentin Moses of Georgia. The Vikings would like to wind up with Wisconsin tackle Joe Thomas, but FOX has him going second overall to the Detroit Lions.

Sidney Ponson, the veteran pitcher with a number of personal problems in the past, has signed with the Twins, and Terry Ryan believes the righthander can make a clean comeback. "I've been interested in him for awhile," the general manager said. "I know he's got some things in his history that he shouldn't be proud of, and neither am I. But I'm just taking a little bit of a low risk, high reward on a minor league invite to see if I can help the guy; maybe we'll get lucky here."

A TCF official verifies that because of inflation, the $35 million contribution to the new Gophers stadium by the bank will be worth only about $20 million as it is paid out over time, and that furthermore, the bank will be able to use this as a tax deduction as a contribution to the University of Minnesota. ... School resumes at Minnesota on Tuesday and only then will the next Gophers football coach know how many of the junior college transfers who signed letters of intent will be available this spring. Some of them have been in town for a couple of days. It looks like five of the eight originally expected to be here will enroll in school.

Former Twins pitcher Dean Chance, here as president of the International Boxing Association for the fights Friday night at Target Center, can't believe they are going to build an open-air baseball stadium here. "Here you cannot afford not to put a retractable dome like Milwaukee has with natural grass and everything," Chance said, then referencing a May 1967 start against the Yankees at Met Stadium. "If you remember, it was 29 above zero. [Yankees lefthander] Fritz Peterson never threw a strike and they took him out. I remember [the Twins] brought Al Worthington in, he pitched the last three innings. But let's be thankful. If it weren't for that game I wouldn't have won 20 that year."

Sid Hartman can be heard weekdays on WCCO AM-830 at 6:40, 7:40 and 8:40 a.m. and on Podcast twice a week at www.startribune.com/sidcast. • shartman@startribune.com