TCU quarterback position still not settled, Patterson says

Among the burning topics of the day — and in July in North Texas there is no better descriptor — TCU football coach Gary Patterson was emphatic about perhaps the most important one to college football want-to-knows.

Who is the heir to quarterback Trevone Boykin, the one-time All-Big 12 offensive player of the year now prepping for training camp with the Seattle Seahawks?

“I don’t know,” the coach said Tuesday to a lunchtime gathering of business leaders and TCU ambassadors in the Champions Club at Amon G. Carter Stadium in an event sponsored by the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce.

The two leading candidates — for now anyway — are, in alphabetical order, Texas A&M junior transfer Kenny Hill and junior Foster Sawyer. Like two years ago, the decision might not be made until a week or perhaps a day before the Horned Frogs’ season opener Sept. 3 against visiting South Dakota State, Patterson said.

The last time the job was open, two years ago when Boykin beat out Matt Joeckel (coincidentally, also a transfer from Texas A&M), most of the supposed best speculators around the water cooler declared that Boykin’s days as a QB were over. Receiver was his future.

“The way we judge quarterbacks is, how does everyone else play around them. Do they get better or do they get worse?” Patterson said. “That’s been my definition of a great player: When he comes into the game does everybody else play better?”

Whoever emerges at quarterback will be leading a young team seeking to replace holes in the offensive line. The roster contains only seven seniors, though Patterson noted with promise that every one of TCU’s touchdown receptions in an improbable Alamo Bowl victory — a game now about as famed as the Alamo — were caught by players returning this year.

Quarterback wasn’t the only topic Patterson toyed with Tuesday in a short question-and-answer session with diners and reporters.

▪ Boykin was in town recently working out at TCU. Patterson said the QB’s arrest in San Antonio during bowl week makes him a better mentor for any of TCU’s young players. “Who would be a better example?” Patterson said. “He knew when he screwed up. I just told my assistant to get him a bus ticket. He knows our rules.”

▪ When it comes to Big 12 expansion, the coach reiterated his indifference with a new twist. If it helps the Big 12 advance a team to the playoffs, great. “If it doesn’t, don’t.” If he was the sultan of the Big 12 in its current 10-team configuration, Patterson said he’d like to see a championship game only if there were two teams tied. If there’s an undefeated, undisputed champion, then no.

▪  The coach would like to see the College Football Playoff extended to six or eight teams, with the first round in the first week of December, the week now devoted to conference championship games. Losers of those games could still go to bowl games while the winners would play the final four, as they do now.

League championship games are tied up in TV contracts, he acknowledged. “If it’s about finding the national champion, that’s going to be as close as an answer as you’ll come” to making it truly fair.

▪ He judges hotels on whether the mashed potatoes are real and the quality of the fried chicken.

In a reminder of how easily time can get away from you, Patterson, 56, reflected briefly on the fact he is entering his 19th season at the school, including three seasons as Dennis Franchione’s defensive coordinator. Players in his first senior class in 1998 are now 40 and 41, he said.

“I’ve been raising 18-23-year-olds for a while. I would not wish that on a whole bunch of you.”

This story was originally published July 12, 2016 at 5:13 PM with the headline "TCU quarterback position still not settled, Patterson says."