TCU has gotten the hang of Patterson’s rugged defense

Posted Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009 Comments   (0) Print Share Share Reprints
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By GIL LeBRETON

glebreton@star-telegram.com

lebreton This just in from the TCU zoology department:

"When cornered or frightened, horned frogs can squirt a fine, four-foot stream of blood from their eyes."

Of course, if you’ve been watching the new Nike TV commercials, you already knew that.

Maybe you saw the TCU Horned Frogs squirt blood from their eyes when they were forced to make a fourth-quarter stand in a driving rainstorm at Clemson.

Or maybe that was blood shooting from the Frogs’ eyes when the field was shrouded in fog and frost at Air Force.

Or maybe you saw what happened three weeks ago, when the TCU defense shot eyeball blood at BYU on the first series — and the Cougars never recovered.

I think it was eyeball blood, at least. The way the Frogs defense has been playing, there has to be something.

The horned frog, phrynosoma cornutum, the official state reptile of Texas (so named in 1992), is about to get its 15 minutes of Andy Warhol fame.

The new Nike-designed helmets that will be used for Saturday’s game against Utah have a pair of thin, blood-red stripes running from the forehead.

It begs the question, why didn’t head coach Gary Patterson think of it first?

Patterson coaches like a guy who would spit a four-foot stream of blood, if he had to. And his defenses play the same way.

In this age of college football where five-receiver sets and spread offenses have become the norm, TCU is trying to do it the old-fashioned way, with smothering, blood-shooting defense.

Consider the company that the Frogs are endeavoring to keep:

The face of the Texas Longhorns, without question, is the Opie smile of quarterback Colt McCoy.

Alabama? The grimacing Nick Saban.

Boise State? Trick plays.

Florida? That stupid Gator Chomp sign.

And for TCU, the iconic image has become Patterson’s defense.

In six of the nine seasons that Patterson has been the head coach, the Frogs defense has allowed less than 19 points per game. In all but one of those seasons, opponents have rushed for an average of less than 108 yards per game.

Four of his nine TCU defenses, including the current one, have ranked in the top three in the nation in fewest yards allowed.

But this one, ironically, wasn’t supposed to be that good. Before the season started, the magazines and prognosticators looked at the TCU depth chart, saw that seven starters had graduated from the defense, and the Frogs were promptly penciled in to finish behind BYU and Utah in the Mountain West Conference.

When spring practice ended, Patterson called a team meeting.

"We weren’t very good defensively, from what our standards have been here," he said. "But you get what you demand, not what you expect.

"We’ve grown up. We’ve gotten better every week."

Patterson still frowns when somebody mentions the Texas State game, won by the Frogs 56-21 on a weekend sandwiched between big road games at Virginia and Clemson. The Bobcats scored three touchdowns, and in the eight other TCU games this season, the opponents have totaled only nine.

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