TCU must get greedy if it wants to reach BCS title game

Posted Monday, Oct. 26, 2009 Comments   (0) Print Share Share Reprints
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By JENNIFER FLOYD ENGEL

jenfloyd@star-telegram.com

engel TCU jumped to No. 6 in this week’s fraudulent BcS rankings.

This we are told is progress, like somehow having a realistic chance at being this season’s "BcS buster" is fabulous. What it is is insulting.

Anybody who does not think TCU can play with the best teams in the country and beat them is not paying attention or has an agenda in ignoring this reality.

Do not settle for this, Gary Patterson. Get greedy.

Repeat after me: If TCU finishes this season undefeated, they deserve to play for a national championship. Anything less is embarrassing for a system which already has plenty to be embarrassed about.

"I wouldn’t at the end of the year," Horned Frogs coach Gary Patterson said when I asked him if he felt weird about campaigning. "I don’t know if it makes any difference [doing it now]."

Maybe, maybe not.

What TCU needs to do is try and give this a chance in Hades of happening. A few suggestions:

1. Start campaigning now.

Patterson hates this, but he needs to memorize this sentence: "If we finish this season undefeated, my kids deserve to play for a national championship."

And he needs to repeat it daily, starting right now, immediately.

I realize "old-school coach think" is wait, get to the end of the season undefeated, then lobby. And Patterson has repeatedly said he does not want to talk about BCS rankings.

"I’m not going to worry about anything outside of games until the very end," he said. "If I don’t take care of my business, it won’t matter."

He’s a football genius. But he’s wrong on this because, by then, it will be too late. The Big Game will be filled with the winner of Alabama/Florida and Texas. Yes, this may happen anyway. BcS "expert" Jerry Palm already declared "Armageddon" as TCU’s only path to a national championship, with a two-loss SEC team having a better chance than the undefeated Frogs.

So what? Campaign anyway.

Because being the team that everybody feels sorry for not getting a chance is not at all satisfying. Don’t believe me? Ask Utah and Auburn. Almost having a chance to play for a national championship is quickly forgotten, whereas rings buy leeway.

2. Properly motivate The Mountain to join in this effort.

Every Mountain West coach also needs to start also saying, "If TCU finishes this undefeated, Coach Patterson and his guys deserve to play for a national championship."

Whether TCU has a legit chance directly impacts them.

Next season this may be BYU. And last season was Utah, undefeated and uninvited. Coach Kyle Whittingham and his Utes were supposed to be appeased by a lesser BcS Bowl, kicking the you know what out of Alabama and having a bunch of pundits saying afterward that Utah was hosed.

Doesn’t the possibility of having back-to-back undefeated teams without a chance for a national championship further hint at a credibility problem for the MWC? And isn’t this a job for say a commissioner of the conference?

My mid-morning call to commish Craig Thompson’s office was too late to reach him before a dinner event he was attending in Denver. His PR guy told me at 6-something, when he finally called back, that Thompson is busy on Mondays, apparently fixing this Versus-DIRECTV feud (unlikely) or twiddling his thumbs while Fort Worth burns (my guess). PR guy also told me a) I’m wrong and b) The Mountain was all over this issue this off-season. They made so much headway, TCU is right back where Utah finished off. So I kind of want to hear that Thompson is applying political pressure now. Send out a secret memo to all of your coaches to do likewise. You are all in this together. So start campaigning and answer your phone. And I guess this kills my MWC media gift.

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