Gary Patterson and Chris Petersen were included on the 2026 College Football Hall of Fame ballot, announced Monday by the National Football Foundation.
The 2026 class will be selected by the NFF Honors Court, announced in January, and inducted at the 68th NFF Annual Awards Dinner on Dec. 8, 2026 in Las Vegas.
Both Patterson and Petersen should be shoe-in, first-ballot inductions, with impacts stretching well beyond their respective football programs and changing the landscape of their overall universities.
Patterson took over as TCU's head coach in 2000 after serving as Dennis Franchione's defensive coordinator for three seasons. (Franchione is also on the 2026 ballot). In 22 seasons, Patterson went 181-79 and, in the process, took TCU from the WAC, to Conference USA, to the Mountain West, to (ever so briefly) the Big East, and then to the Big 12, the school's ultimate destination upon the breakup of the Southwest Conference in the mid-1990s. Simply put, there's no telling where Texas Christian University would be today without the gridiron success of Patterson. Patterson won six championships spread across three conferences, posted six AP top-10 finishes, and presided over the program's absolute high-point since its 1938 claimed national championship -- an undefeated 2010 season that saw the Horned Frogs defeat Big Ten co-champion Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl and finish No. 2 in both polls.
TCU also posted an undefeated regular season in 2009, and produced a memorable 2014 season that saw the 12-1 Frogs share the Big 12 championship with arch-rival Baylor, hammer Ole Miss 42-3 in the Peach Bowl, and finish No. 3 in both polls.
Patterson specialized in identifying unseen traits in overlooked recruits and turning them into all-conference players, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. His best work was exemplified in Jerry Hughes, a high school running back who won the Ted Hendricks Award as the nation's top defensive end, became a first-round pick, and played 15 NFL seasons.
Like Patterson, Petersen ascended to the head coaching role after serving as a coordinator first at Boise State. He went 147-38 across 14 seasons at Boise State and Washington. His teams won seven championships in the WAC, Mountain West and Pac-12, and enjoyed three undefeated regular seasons.
Petersen went 13-0 in his first season at Boise State, and then an unfathomable 50-3 from 2008-11. Petersen's 2006 team produced one of the most iconic wins in college football history, the trick-play laden comeback over Oklahoma in that season's Fiesta Bowl. Petersen also led an undefeated Bronco outfit over Patterson's undefeated TCU team in the 2009 season Fiesta Bowl. His best work on the blue turf was done with New Orleans Saints head coach Kellen Moore, also on the 2026 ballot as a player.
At Washington, Petersen took the Huskies to the 2016 College Football Playoff and the Rose Bowl following the 2018 season. That remains Washington's only trip to Pasadena since the 2000 season.
Joining Coach P and Coach Pete on the 2026 ballot are Jim Carlen, Pete Cawthon, Sr., Larry Coker, Franchione, Ralph Friedgen, Darryl Rogers, and Tommy Tuberville -- all of whom are multi-year holdovers.
The NFF recently lowered its criteria from a career .600 winning percentage to .595, known as the "Mike Leach Clause" after the late Leach died in 2022 with a .59848 winning percentage. Leach, along with Les Miles and Jackie Sherrill, will be eligible for the ballot in 2027.