After a few weeks of rumors and whispers, Texas athletic director Steve Patterson was fired Tuesday just 22 months after he was hired away from ASU.
Patterson's tenure at Texas was brief and full of highlights and lowlights like frequent clashes with fans and boosters on issues of fundraising and increased ticket prices.
Despite the brevity of his time in Austin, Patterson actually lasted longer as a Longhorn than he did as a Sun Devil. When he held the athletic director job in Tempe, he lasted just 19 months before heading to the Lone Star State.
Patterson, who was still under contract until 2019, was being paid roughly $1.4 million a year by one of the nation's wealthiest athletic programs but now finds himself out of a job.
Despite flashy hires of head football coach Charlie Strong and men's basketball head coach Shaka Smart, Patterson was unable to generate any real on-field success across his sports.
Texas football is always a big headliner. They sit at 1-1 after beating Rice at home on Saturday but a 38-3 blowout loss to Notre Dame to open the season left an exceptionally bad taste in the mouths of fans and boosters.
While Patterson struggled to get Texas on track, his successor in Tempe has been one of the better stories in all of college sports over the last two years.
Ray Anderson has rejuvenated not only the ASU football team but also the women's soccer and volleyball programs — not to mention the elevation of the men's hockey team from club to NCAA Division I status.
He has hired highly respected and talented coaches, like men's basketball head man Bobby Hurley and new swim and dive head coach Bob Bowman.
Even though mathematically the ASU athletic program is still middle of the pack as a whole, there is no doubt that athletes, fans and onlookers are starting to see the Sun Devils in a new light.
While Patterson's departure and Anderson's early success can't be regarded as the only cause for such phenomenon as Camp Fargo and the Curtain of Distraction, it's undeniable that the direction of the ASU program has encouraged fans to buy in more.
They say everything is bigger in Texas and for Patterson, that rang true. The pressure and the spotlight was bigger than in any other job he's held in his career and, no matter the headlining hires he made, he couldn't overcome a lack of on-field success and an increasingly sour relationship with the program's boosters.
He also lacked fan support, something Anderson has in spades. In fact, during the football team's home-opener victory over Rice, a plane flew over the Darrell K Royal - Texas Memorial Stadium bearing the banner "Patterson Must Go."
University of Texas president Greg Fenves has only been on the job for four months and he already recognized that the athletic department, and Patterson in particular, was going nowhere fast.
Like a baseball manager dealing with a struggling pitcher, Fenves had a quick hook and made the decision to fire Patterson quickly and decisively.
As Texas now looks for a new person to helm their athletic department (and its roughly $160 million budget), ASU and its fans should be counting their graces that they ended up with Anderson instead.
Related Links:
State Press Conversations: ASU Athletic Director Steve Patterson on paying student athletes
Steve Patterson to head ASU Athletics
Reach the assistant sports editor at icbeck@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @ICBeck21.
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