Houston, we have no problem

Can't understand why so many people aren't happy with the Frogs going to the Houston Bowl.

Let me spell out one big reason to you: R-E-C-R-U-I-T-I-N-G.

Gary Patterson and his staff have always recruited the Houston area heavily. Playing in a bowl game there enhances TCU's visibility. Recruits can watch them practice. Memphis and Shreveport, to name two, are not hotbeds of TCU recruiting.

The MWC is trying to move away from its Liberty Bowl ties, not re-embrace them. The Liberty people made Utah cough up $2.5 million last year for permission to play in the Fiesta Bowl.

Plus, TCU fans are going to love Reliant Stadium. It's got club level seating, which the Independence Bowl doesn't.

Patterson's contract extension, by the way, which runs through the 2012 season, will earn him an estimated $1.2 million in real-time (not annuity) dollars. I don't know that figure for a fact yet. Consider it an educated estimate. (TCU doesn't announce contract terms).

There are 16 head coaches in NCAA Division I-A who earn at least $2 million per year (five were in the Big 12 this season). Patterson's not there yet, but by staying at TCU, he's working in the right neighborhood for it.

Patterson better off to wait

As colleague Jimmy Burch explained eloquently in Thursday's newspaper, the Kansas State football job isn't the sleeping sunflower seed that it was when Bill Snyder found it.

Barry Switzer and Mack Brown are right in saying that Snyder may have done the coaching job of the century in resurrecting the K-State program. But the recruiting rules have changed.

The junior college pipeline, long a Snyder staple, has been narrowed considerably, and the Wildcats have had to go to the rear of the long line of schools recruiting Texas prospects. Manhattan alum Gary Patterson has a better chance of signing a good Texas recruiting class at TCU than he would at Kansas State.

And don't think the new NCAA rule against shuttling recruits on private planes isn't a factor.

Patterson can easily fly out-of-state recruits into D/FW Airport. At K-State, it would be a 238-mile round-trip commute from the Kansas City airport. The new KSU coach's recruits will be sound asleep by the time they reach campus.

And with all due respects to Patterson's alma mater, why aim that low? Patterson is just one more 10-1 season away from having the really big boys interested in him.

Hey, the Texas A&M job may be open.