Manhattan ? When Kansas State athletic director Bob Krause announced coach Ron Prince would not be back next season, the immediate focus shifted to Texas Christian’s Gary Patterson.

It made sense. Patterson is a Kansas native, played at Kansas State as a walk-on and got his first coaching job in Manhattan under Jim Dickey in 1982.

It seemed so logical that the only surprise from an Internet report that Patterson had been hired at Kansas State was that it happened so quickly, just two days after Prince was fired on Nov. 5.

The problem was that the report was false — and Patterson didn’t like it.

The Horned Frogs coach immediately denied that he had taken the job and ranted about the false report during his radio show later that day.

Even now, nearly two weeks after the report came out, Patterson is still bothered that he was linked to another job just hours after his team had been knocked out of BCS contention by a loss to Utah.

“I just had 65 guys fight their hearts out for a dream to get to a BCS game, and they lost it,” Patterson said this week during the Mountain West coaches teleconference.

“The first thing they did when they woke up after getting home at about 4 in the morning was to find out the guy they fought for had taken another job. It was very disappointing to me that that happened because there were a lot of people that had put a lot of time and effort into this season.”

So does that mean Patterson is out of the running for the K-State job? Not necessarily. It just means he’s not going to talk about it right now.

Neither is Krause.

At the time of Prince’s firing, Kansas State’s athletic director said he hoped to have a coach in place before the end of the season. The Wildcats finish Saturday against Iowa State, so it doesn’t look like that will happen.

So if Patterson doesn’t end up being the man, who might?

Oklahoma associate head coach Brent Venables would have to be considered a strong candidate after playing at Kansas State and spending six years there on Bill Snyder’s staff.

Phillip Fulmer is available after being fired — effective at the end of the year — at Tennessee. Tyrone Willingham was let go at Washington, though he’d probably be a longshot the way the Huskies struggled in his four seasons there.

Dennis Franchione is also a possibility. The former Texas A&M coach is from Girard, attended Pittsburg State in the southeast part of the state and reportedly has expressed interest in the job.

The most intriguing candidate might already be on campus.

Snyder has his name on the stadium and hasn’t coached since 2005, but could make the transition to a new coach easier if he were persuaded to come back to the sideline for a year or two.