George Munger Award

In 2009, Patterson has guided the Horned Frogs to a 12-0 record, No. 3 national ranking and their first BCS appearance as TCU will face Boise State Jan. 4 in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. TCU is 12-0 for the first time in its history. The 2009 campaign saw the Frogs complete their first perfect regular season since the 1938 national championship team.

The dean of Mountain West Conference coaches, Patterson has led TCU to at least 10 wins six times in the last eight years, including five 11-win campaigns since 2003. No other coach in TCU history has more than two 10-win campaigns.

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Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer does not believe in excuses. Setbacks? You work through them. Lose Peyton Manning to the NFL? Lose your best running back, Jamal Lewis, to injury? You just keep on going.

"I've always believed if we're willing to work hard enough, good things will happen," Fulmer said. "I think we proved that this season."

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In December, 1986, Frank Beamer was introduced as head football coach at his alma mater Virginia Tech. A reporter asked Beamer if he believed the Hokies could win a national championship. "If I didn't think we could reach that level, I wouldn't be here," Beamer said.

It seemed like a far-fetched notion at the time, but not anymore. This season, the 53-year-old Beamer led Virginia Tech to an 11-0 regular season record and a Sugar Bowl date with Florida State for the national championship.

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In December, 1998, Bobby Stoops was introduced as head football coach at Oklahoma, a school with a proud football tradition, but one that had crumbled in recent years, losing 22 of 34 games from 1996-98.

Stoops gave the Sooner fans what they wanted to hear: a promise that OU football would be restored to its former glory. He didn't ask for time. He didn't plead for patience. He understood the fans' frustration and he vowed to change things for the better.

When Maryland opened its 2001 season with a 23-7 win over North Carolina, senior center Melvin Fowler called his older brother Kevin.

"I told my brother, ‘I think we have a chance to run the table,’" Fowler recalled. "He didn’t believe me. He said, ‘That’s only one game. It’s too early to tell." I said, ‘I saw the way the team played today. It’s a different team than in years past.’"

Tyrone Willingham knew he was accepting a large challenge when he took over the football program at Notre Dame. It is the most storied football program in America with a passionate, and demanding fan base. And times were hard.
The Fighting Irish had finished the 2001 season with a 5-6 record and no one was bothering to wake up the echoes in South Bend because the glory days of Ara Parseghian and Lou Holtz seemed just a distant memory.

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Pete Carroll is known as a players' coach. He sees nothing wrong with that. And judging by his record in three seasons at the University of Southern California, his way of doing things is working just fine.

"I think you can have a great time playing this game, coaching this game," Carroll said in leading the Trojans to a 12-1 record in the 2003 season, capped by a 28-14 win over Michigan in the Rose Bowl. "I have a need to find fun and make it fun for the players and coaches."

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All around Salt Lake City, on the roads leading to the University of Utah campus, there were banners that read: "Utah football: Fasten your seatbelts." Anyone who saw the Utes during their record-setting 2004 season knew that was good advice. If you didn't buckle up, you could get whiplash watching an offense that scored more than 40 points in nine of 11 regular season and conference games.

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When Penn State toppled Ohio State this season, Joe Paterno was asked if the victory meant the Nittany Lions were back. Paterno’s answer: “I don’t know that we ever left.”

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It is only fitting that Greg Schiano, a Jersey guy, put Rutgers on the football map. Schiano, who grew up in Wyckoff in Bergen County and was a 195-pound linebacker at Ramapo High, has done what no one thought possible: he has built the state university of New Jersey into a gridiron power.

“He had a vision of what college football in New Jersey could be,” Schiano’s mother Renee told Lenn Robbins of the New York Post. “He really felt it. He had that vision and he had a plan.”

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