‘You keep fighting’: No panic from Gary Patterson as TCU’s bowl dreams on life support

West Virginia bills itself as a state that is “wild and wonderful.” That rung true for the state’s football program Saturday.

The Mountaineers and their faithful certainly enjoyed themselves during a 47-10 rout of the TCU Horned Frogs. They went “wild” by scoring 21 points in the final six minutes of the opening half, and the final score is “wonderful” for a team trying to strengthen their case for the College Football Playoff.

For TCU, meanwhile, the loss puts it on the brink of missing bowl eligibility for the first time since 2013. On to the takeaways –

Offensive struggles

The Frogs are out of sorts offensively. It’s worth repeating these numbers – TCU had a season-low 222 yards, including minus-7 rushing yards on 24 attempts.

That’s the worst rushing performance since it produced minus-26 yards against Texas A&M in 2001. The 10 points scored were a season-low. TCU has scored 28 or fewer points in eight consecutive games, the first time that’s happened since the 1-10 season in 1997.

“We just can’t get into a rhythm right now,” receiver Jalen Reagor said. “It’s no specific reason or specific person. It’s just we can’t get into a rhythm as an offense.”

The offense moved the ball well on the opening drive, going 65 yards and settling for a field goal. After that, though, nothing seemed to go well.

TCU finished the day having five three-and-out series, and also took a safety on the opening possession of the second half.

The lone touchdown came in the third quarter on a 28-yard fade pass from Mike Collins to Reagor. Reagor finished with 11 catches for 150 yards and has now caught a TD in five straight games.

But he didn’t take solace in his individual numbers.

“It’s good, but we’re losing,” Reagor said. “It’s good to do, but I like to win and I like to do stuff for the team.”

Depleted D

Patterson won’t use injuries as an excuse, but the defense is short-handed. There’s no way around it and it showed Saturday.

“We have enough energy right now to play about a half against good people,” Patterson said. “We played not quite a half – we played up to about six minutes left to go.”

The defense is missing two starting safeties in Innis Gaines and Niko Small, and one of the school’s all-time leading tacklers, Ty Summers, is sidelined with an injury. Ross Blacklock was expected to be an interior force, too, and there’s several players available but battling various injuries.

Patterson said during his midweek news conference that he had to adjust practice by limiting reps with the hope of getting players available for Saturday. Players, especially younger players, need reps in practice to prepare but TCU is in a precarious situation on the injury front.

So it’s no surprise that TCU wasn’t able to hang with the No. 7 team in the country for more than a half.

Keeping hope

Patterson and the players aren’t going to give up on the season. Reagor, in particular, understands the importance of trying to finish the season out strong.

Even though Reagor is a sophomore, he comes from a football family and has been the best offensive player to date. He welcomes a leadership role.

“I’m young, but I have a big responsibility and a big role on this team,” Reagor said. “No matter win or loss, I have to encourage, especially my position group and the quarterback, just to keep everybody up spirit, upbeat. Everybody has years like this. We just have to shake back, finish the season strong, give the seniors the best season.”

History lesson

Patterson remembers his first season as head coach in 2001 and his back being against a wall at this juncture. The Frogs had just lost to UAB, and had to close out the season with wins over Southern Miss and Louisville to become bowl eligible.

Well, Patterson and TCU did it. So Patterson isn’t writing this group off yet and didn’t sound like he’d go into “panic” mode with two games left.

“You keep fighting,” Patterson said. “We had the same problems [in 2001]. You’ve got to get ready to go.”

Final word

Patterson had a simple message to his team afterward.

“The bottom line is there are things we’ve got to fix, but you can’t fix them right now,” Patterson said. “You’ve got two weeks left, and you’ve got to find a way to beat Baylor coming up and then Oklahoma State. You want to get to six wins. That’s what we’re trying to get accomplished.”