Patterson wants to pay back TCU’s debt to Boykin

Trevone Boykin has delivered a school-record 16-game winning streak for TCU.

He’s brought a share of a Big 12 championship to Fort Worth.

He elevated his reputation and his school’s by sharing a personal moment with a young fan.

In front of him lies a chance to win the Heisman Trophy.

It all leaves TCU coach Gary Patterson shaking his head. How can he possibly thank the senior quarterback for everything?

In Patterson’s mind, simply doing his own job.

“I want to be able to help Trevone reach his goals,” Patterson said. “He’s helped us as a university and as a football team to reach ours. My job is to do everything in my power to help control the defense to give him an opportunity. Because he has a better chance of reaching everything he wants to reach if we can win the next four ballgames.”

But that will be a tough job, both on Patterson’s end and Boykin’s.

The next four games for No. 8 TCU, starting Saturday at unbeaten No. 12 Oklahoma State, are against teams with a combined 23-9 record. That makes it the toughest four-game stretch of the season, and the defining stretch for Boykin’s Heisman hopes and TCU’s Big 12 championship and playoff hopes.

“He and I don’t talk about that, and I haven’t said that to him,” Patterson said. “But on my side, it’s how can I help him be successful? If I can hold them to one less point, then he’s got a better opportunity to be successful.”

Boykin and the offense have done what Patterson hoped — given the defense time to find its feet.

Already having to replace six starters before the season opener, the task got tougher for Patterson’s group with the loss of five more starters, plus a rotational player, to injury or other reasons in the first three weeks — and it showed. In a four-week stretch starting with SMU and ending with Kansas State, the Horned Frogs gave up 141 points.

But in the past two games, Patterson and the defense have started paying back their debt to the offense. They’ve allowed 10 points in the past seven quarters.

“We’re getting closer,” Patterson said.

Even with more help from the defense, however, Boykin is likely to have to make even more of his own case starting Saturday. Patterson said on his weekly radio show Thursday that the odds aren’t in TCU’s favor in the four-game closing stretch, and he said Tuesday in his weekly press conference on campus that it will be tough for Boykin to be perfect, too.

“There’s going to be one where you’ve got a chance of possibly getting stoned, as far as people getting after you, kind of like the West Virginia game a year ago,” Patterson said. “How do you find a way to win? That’s the bottom line to us.”

Boykin has found a way all season. It is what has him and TCU in this position.

“Like anybody else, he wants to show that he’s the best,” Patterson said. “That’s what makes him what he is. He’s one of those guys who’d go out and play in the parking lot. He and Josh Doctson, Davion Pierson, Derrick Kindred — we’ve got guys that are like that, that no matter where you have the game, they’re going to show up for it. And the more you have of those kind of players, the better chance you have to have a good football team. Because there has to be a toughness to you to get through. You’re not always going to have good days.”

But the good days have been many so far. Patterson is ready to say thanks.

This story was originally published November 6, 2015 at 12:49 PM with the headline "Patterson wants to pay back TCU’s debt to Boykin."