Hlas: If TCU’s a destination, why not Iowa State?

This should have been a week of unbridled joy for Iowa State football followers.

The Cyclones cracked the Top 25 of Associated Press' rankings. At 5-2 overall and 3-1 in the Big 12, and with road wins over Oklahoma and Texas Tech, it's been a heck of an October.

But the instant ISU football became relevant nationally, out came the Matt Campbell Isn't Long for Iowa State Choir. This week's guest-conductor was ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit, long one of the most levelheaded and brightest bulbs in college football's cavalcade of television talking heads.

'Enjoy this team and this coach, in particular, while you can,” Herbstreit tweeted this week. 'He's gone.”

Which was two things: News to Campbell, and proof Twitter can make even reasonable people go all knee-jerk.

Sure, Herbstreit could be right. Perhaps Campbell does get seduced by some deep-pockets poacher from Tennessee or Texas A&M or Nebraska, someone with a self-diagnosed football ailment.

Or maybe there's another scenario. Maybe Campbell looks at his coaching counterpart on Saturday and sees how good life can be when you're the original sculptor instead of the person hired to give a face-lift to a faded classic statue.

Gary Patterson became TCU's head coach in December 2000. His record there is 156-54. He brings the nation's No. 4 team to Jack Trice Stadium Saturday to test Campbell's Cyclones.

TCU was invited into the Big 12 from the Mountain West six years ago because Patterson had made the Horned Frogs a national program. The Frogs capped an unbeaten 2010 season with a Rose Bowl win over Wisconsin.

How many overtures has Patterson received from other programs in his time in Fort Worth? Plenty. Just this week, he was asked about his name being mentioned in connection with coaching jobs that may open once this season ends, if not sooner.

'We've been listening to that for 15 years,” he said.

Whenever wolves have been at TCU's door for Patterson, the school fended them off. Patterson's $5.1 million salary is the ninth-highest in college football according to a USA TODAY list of FBS coaching salaries.

TCU raised $164 million from donors to renovate its 87-year-old, 45,000-seat stadium. Six donors gave $15 million apiece. Want to bet they're fond of their coach?

Patterson has proved not only can you take TCU to the Top 5 of the Big 12, but of America. Not a one-time, every-star-aligning Top 5 appearance, either. Under Patterson, the Frogs have played 28 games as a Top 5 team. They have won 26.

If Campbell would have allowed himself two minutes of idle thought in a week filled with the challenge of facing TCU, which of the following thoughts would have grabbed him more?

1. 'I could jump to somewhere considered a traditional football power, but where nothing but winning big every year is accepted and where I'd be butting my head into a brick wall (like against Alabama in the SEC).”

2. 'They love and appreciate me here in this place where winning has been uncommon, where the football complex is new and first-rate, the stadium has been renovated and has a much-better environment on Game Day than it once did, and the athletic director will have to do everything in his power to keep me happy.”

'We've got just as much opportunity to do elite things as anybody in college football,” Campbell told the Des Moines Register this week.

Can't happen? The same was once said as fact about Kansas State, Wisconsin, Iowa. TCU was 1-10 in 1997.

It's highly unlikely 37-year-old Campbell will be in Ames when he's Patterson's current age of 57. But if he can keep Iowa State pointed forward for a few more years, he could one day make a bigger move than anything that will be out there this December.

He is an Ohio guy, you know.

But for now, forget that noise. If the Cyclones topple another Top 5 team Saturday? Holy Toledo!