Ground Report

TCU’S PATTERSON WINS
2009 EDDIE ROBINSON AWARD

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (FWAA) – TCU coach Gary Patterson has been named the winner of the 2009 FWAA/Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award. Patterson is the second Mountain West Conference coach in six years to win the honor.

The Eddie Robinson Award, which is sponsored by the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, will be highlighted during a reception Tuesday evening in Newport Beach, Calif., in conjunction with the 2010 Citi BCS National Championship Game. Coach Patterson will be presented with the trophy at that time.

The entire FWAA membership votes on the association’s Coach of the Year Award, which was narrowed to seven finalists in early December. Urban Meyer, then at Utah, is the only previous Mountain West Conference coach to win the award in 2004.

Patterson led the Horned Frogs to a 12-0 record and their first BCS bowl appearance, a Jan. 4 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl date with Boise State. TCU has put together its first undefeated regular season since its 1938 national championship season.

TCU is the only team in the nation to rank in the top five in both total offense and total defense. The Horned Frogs are No. 1 in total defense for the fourth time in the last 10 seasons and fifth nationally in total offense. In 2009, TCU set single-season school records for points scored (488) and total offense (5,629 yards).

Patterson’s 85-27 record (.759) is the best mark of TCU’s four coaches who guided the team in at least 100 games. Patterson’s 85 wins are second on the Frogs’ career victory list. In terms of victories, he trails only Dutch Meyer (109-79-13, .575), who coached TCU to its 1935 and ’38 national championships. With a 17-16 victory over Boise State in the 2008 Poinsettia Bowl, TCU has won four straight bowl games. Entering the current bowl season, TCU was one of just seven schools nationally to have a current bowl winning streak of at least four games.

In nine seasons as the head coach at TCU, Patterson has coached 113 All-Conference selections, seven All-Americans, 12 Freshman All-Americas and one Academic All-American. Patterson has had 21 players drafted with a total of 41 in NFL camps.

The FWAA has honored a major-college coach with its Coach of the Year Award since 1957. In 1997, the FWAA coaching award was named after Eddie Robinson, a coaching legend at Grambling State University for 55 years. The late "Coach Rob" has more Division I victories (408) than any other coach. Coach Robinson passed away on April 4, 2007, but his legacy will certainly not be forgotten. He coached his entire career at Grambling and produced numerous professional players and coaches as well as players who graduated and distinguished themselves in other professional endeavors.

The Eddie Robinson Museum will be dedicated in mid-February in Grambling, La., where Coach Robinson established his coaching legacy. A gala banquet is scheduled at the Grambling State University Assembly Center on Feb. 12. Many of the former National Football League players guided by Robinson during his record-setting career at Grambling are scheduled to be in attendance, both for the banquet and the museum’s ribbon-cutting ceremony on Feb. 13.

The Football Writers Association of America, a non-profit organization founded in 1941, consists of more than 1,100 men and women across North America who cover college football for a living. The membership includes journalists, broadcasters and publicists, as well as key executives in all the areas that involve the game. The FWAA works to govern areas that include game day operations, major awards, a national poll and its annual All-America team.

The Eddie Robinson Award is a member of the National College Football Awards Association (NCFAA). The NCFAA was founded in 1997 as a coalition of the major collegiate football awards to protect, preserve and enhance the integrity, influence and prestige of the game’s predominant awards. The NCFAA encourages professionalism and the highest standards for the administration of its member awards and the selection of their candidates and recipients. For more information, visit the association’s official Web site, ncfaa.org.