Gary Patterson talks ‘disciplinary reasons,’ freshmen and squib kicks after TCU’s win

As expected, TCU had little trouble handling Southern on Saturday.

TCU looked like a Big 12 school with one of the top defenses in the conference, and Southern looked like a SWAC school. The final score said it all – 55-7.

Here our five thoughts from the season-opening rout:

1. Discipline news

TCU had four players unavailable for the opener for what athletics director Jeremiah Donati explained as “disciplinary reasons.”

Defensive linemen Ross Blacklock, Joseph Broadnax and L.J. Collier, as well as offensive lineman Chris Gaynor, were held out.

Blacklock is out for the season with an Achilles injury, but coach Gary Patterson sounded optimistic about getting those players back this week.

“We’ll get a couple of those defensive linemen back for this ballgame,” Patterson said. “Everybody has to learn. Gaynor will be back at center this week, that was also from a NCAA situation.

“Everybody’s got to learn. Everybody’s gotta pay a price. Hopefully you don’t put everybody in harm’s way.”

Broadnax, Collier and Gaynor bolster the Frogs’ depth and are expected to be significant contributors this season.

Regardless of those issues, plenty of Frogs saw the field on Saturday. A total of 80 players saw action in the opener.

2. Learning experience

In a 48-point victory, not much could have gone wrong, right? Well, that’s not the case.

TCU has plenty to work on from the opening game. Quarterback Shawn Robinson knows he has to be more accurate, and the defense left with a few teachable moments.

Southern’s only touchdown came on a 55-yard pass from John Lampley to Cameron Mackey midway through the second quarter.

“Just a coverage bust,” free safety Niko Small said. “That’s about it.”

Small acknowledged that Patterson had a few words for the secondary after that play, saying everyone is striving for perfection on the field.

The defense gave up another big play in the second quarter – Lampley hit Trey Smith for a 41-yard gain down to the TCU 18.

But the defense responded after that. Southern found itself out of field goal range after a holding penalty and a sack by Garret Wallow for a 9-yard loss. Then, on a third-and-29 play, TCU weak safety Ridwan Issahaku came down with an interception.

3. RB matters

TCU has dealt with a banged up running back corps throughout fall camp, but it didn’t seem to affect the ground game.

TCU combined to rush for 235 yards on 42 carries, averaging 5.6 yards a carry. The leading rusher was Emari Demercado, who had 57 yards on eight carries (a 7.1 yards per carry).

Demercado garnered praise from Patterson afterward.

“I liked Emari,” Patterson said. “I think he’s going to be a good player.”

Patterson said the team limited reps for No. 1 running back Darius Anderson, who finished with 36 rushing yards on eight carries.

“He seemed kind of tentative cause he’s been out so long,” Patterson said.

The Frogs ended up using five running backs on the day. Along with Demercado and Anderson, Sewo Olonilua (five carries for 43 yards), Kenedy Snell (seven carries for 23 yards) and Jacques Guillot (three carries for 7 yards) all saw action.

4. Patterson’s clarifications

Patterson made it a point to clarify a couple odder things that happened during the game.

In the second quarter, TCU kicked off from the 50 following a Southern penalty. So Patterson opted to squib kick it and it worked – Southern started from its own 8.

“I wasn’t trying to do anything except I wanted to practice it,” Patterson said. “Moved it to the 50, kick it, it’s going to be a fair catch, so we squibbed it. It took a good hop. You’ve got to become more creative about what you’re trying to get accomplished.”

Later in the game, Patterson raised eyebrows when he used a timeout with 1:08 left. Southern had possession of the ball and were seemingly running the clock out to end the game.

“If you want to know why I called a timeout at the end is because TV needed a timeout,” Patterson said, chuckling.

5. He said it

Patterson had the quote of the day in his post-game comments when talking about the number of freshmen who played in the game. Freshmen and inexperience go hand-in-hand even if you’ve been coaching since 1982.

“Freshmen are freshmen,” Patterson said. “Even though I told them before the ballgame what they were going to do – here’s what you’re going to do, here’s what happens on the sidelines, this is what freshmen do.

“And we’re looking for all of them. Clear down to the last punt of the game … we don’t have a right guard on our punt team because we’re sending everybody in. So it’ll be a great learning experience tomorrow.”

This story was originally published September 1, 2018 at 5:37 PM.