Yes, he’s won a Rose Bowl. But 2018 may be Gary Patterson’s best coaching job yet at TCU

Gary Patterson has an undefeated season and Rose Bowl victory on his resume. He’s also won a Peach Bowl with a team that finished ranked No. 3 in the country.

Those are special seasons, special teams in Patterson’s 18 years as TCU’s head coach.

But this 2018 season may be one of his best coaching jobs yet, including the 2010 (Rose) and 2014 (Peach) seasons.

“No question it might be his best, just based on what he had to overcome and what they faced,” said Brian Estridge, who is in his 20th season as the “Voice of the Frogs.”

“Gary loves overachievers because he’s an overachiever. He realizes he maxed out the talent that this group had. That’s all he asks. We all talk about the fact he strives for perfection and making the perfect call, but all he wants to do is max out talent.

“He can go position by position. I maxed out everything Ridwan Issahaku had. We got everything we could out of Vernon Scott. That to him is the ultimate – I got everything I could out of them. He doesn’t get mad at kids or disappointed in kids who have given him everything. These guys gave him everything they had. He’ll look back on this as a really good year.”

Especially if TCU beats Cal in Wednesday’s Cheez-It Bowl to finish with a winning record for the 14th time in the Patterson era. Kickoff is set for 8 p.m. at Chase Field, home of MLB’s Arizona Diamondbacks.

As Estridge said, effort hasn’t been an issue for this TCU team. The Frogs never wavered whenever another player went down with an injury.

It seemed like an endless list from fall camp when they lost their best defensive tackle, Ross Blacklock, and one of the top-rated 2018 recruits, safety Atanza Vongor.

Injuries knocked out TCU’s top two quarterbacks, Shawn Robinson and Mike Collins, during the season. One of the top offensive linemen, left guard Cordel Iwuagwu, has played in just four games.

Strong safety Innis Gaines was having a standout season before an injury cut his season short, and free safety Niko Small has missed seven games. Defensive tackle Joseph Broadnax Jr. missed the final three games with an undisclosed medical condition, and linebacker Ty Summers – the team’s active leader in career tackles – missed three of the final four games with an ankle injury.

Heck, it got to the point where Patterson and the staff had to move the team’s leading tackler at the time – linebacker Garret Wallow – to safety and were using a kicker at defensive end on scout team.

It wasn’t just injuries, either. TCU had to dismiss star returner/ receiver KaVontae Turpin for a pair of domestic violence charges.

All of it could’ve added up to a disastrous season. Instead, TCU is bowling once again.

“He sometimes jokes about working hard, but I know for a fact the coaching staff has spent more time in there this year than they ever have, just trying to figure it out,” Estridge said. “When you play young guys, not only do you have to coach those guys, but you have to coach the coaches. So you end up coaching both the coaches and the players.

“That’s why I think you can say he’s done an amazing job to still have the Big 12’s No. 1 defense after all of that.”

This is the fourth time TCU has had the Big 12’s top defense since joining the conference in 2012. Only Oklahoma and West Virginia scored more points than its season averages against TCU.

Arguably the most impressive games were the final two that the Frogs had to win to become bowl eligible. TCU held Baylor to just nine points and 303 total yards in a 16-9 victory. Baylor entered averaging 28 points and 441 yards.

Then, in the regular season finale, TCU held Oklahoma State to 24 points, 14 less than its season average of 38. The Cowboys also gained a season-low 280 yards of total offense after putting up more than 600 in their previous two games.

“I learned so much from watching him this year and it may be his best coaching job because of the hand we were dealt,” TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati said. “The injuries … you can’t make this stuff up. We were decimated with injuries and he didn’t make any excuses. He kept grinding every week.

“I was really impressed with how he kept a clear perspective on it. He didn’t pout. He didn’t complain. It was what it was. Every week, I’d come in and talk to him and he had a smile on his face and gave me the injury report.

“I really learned a lot about him as a person and just the kind of the character he has this season. I think the guys fed off that never quit, don’t-say-die attitude. Here we are reaping the rewards because this season could’ve easily been a 3-9 season with everybody we lost.

“You could easily make the argument this was his best coaching season. It probably put a few more gray hairs in his head, but it was true, vintage Gary Patterson.”

Coaching principles

Patterson has made a name for himself with his defense, and he offered insight into his coaching philosophies throughout the season.

One of the most interesting is his approach turning offensive players into defensive standouts. Linebacker Ty Summers played quarterback in high school and is now TCU’s active leader in career tackles with 315.

Defensive end L.J. Collier played tight end in high school and is now on the verge of becoming an NFL player. The list goes on.

“You have to learn defense at TCU like you play offense,” Patterson said during one of his weekly news conferences this season.

“You have to understand concepts. That’s why I like offensive guys. I like running backs, wide receivers, quarterbacks playing on defense because in high school usually offensive guys learn more concepts. If they’re running a two-deep zone, you’re going to curl. If they’re sending down the safety, you’re going to run a post.

“A lot of defensive guys don’t think that they can do what we do on defense because they’ve never really thought about coaching defense like offense. You’ll ask a quarterback to make audibles and check into plays. But defensive guys are not supposed to be smart enough that we can do that? I disagree.”

Patterson’s track record suggests that he is right in allowing his defensive players to check into plays. Plus, Patterson has coached his players well enough where they feel comfortable making those decisions.

Small, the senior safety from Arlington Bowie, described playing defense for Patterson like studying calculus.

“It’s amazing. Every day it’s almost like a new game plan,” Small said. “I don’t know how you can come up with that many ways to move the defense. I like to think of it as a machine or as like a defense on strings – wherever we move, we always move together.”

Patterson is always on point come game day too. He has prepared himself well enough to call the defense and put his players in the proper position.

“He’s able to predict things,” Summers said. “I hear him yelling out, ‘Hey, he’s going to run a corner route.’ Sure enough, the receiver runs a corner route.”

Outside of the Xs and Os, this season called for Patterson to maneuver his way around the number of injuries and keep players motivated. That aspect had just as much impact as any on-field strategy.

Defensive ends Ben Banogu and L.J. Collier are two NFL prospects who could’ve lost interest when the season wasn’t going well. Cornerback Jeff Gladney played through an injury late in the season when he could’ve sat out.

“How often do you see a team that had a disappointing season where guys start tanking or mailing it in?” Estridge said. “Those guys, Banogu and Collier, are playing as hard as ever. Jeff Gladney had the best games of his career these last three. Jawuan Johnson, a fifth-year senior who transferred here, thought he’d be competing for a national championship and all of a sudden he’s on a team that’s struggling to make a bowl game.

“That, to me, is a testament that Gary has kept them engaged. He’s kept them focused. He’s kept them inspired.”

Over the years, Patterson has kept every practice sheet and every pregame speech. He’ll occasionally look back on different years whether he wants a physical practice, or what messages resonated and what didn’t with players.

This season it seems like he had to empty his coaching notebook.

“I don’t know about that,” Patterson said. “When you have years like this, it’s more the psychology part of being a coach. How do you handle them so they don’t quit? How do you keep growing them up and be tough on them, but still be positive? I think it says a lot about the staff that we were able to be 4-6 and a lot of people would’ve quit and we found a way to win two ballgames and hopefully another one.

“We have a chance to win four of the last five.”

Finishing strong

TCU and Cal are two teams that aren’t viewing the Cheez-It Bowl as a second-tier game. Wednesday’s game is important for each program that prides itself on defense.

A winning season given the number of injuries would be quite a feat for the Frogs. Cal, meanwhile, would like to win its first bowl game under Justin Wilcox.

For TCU, though, everybody recognizes the job Patterson and his staff has done in simply getting the team to this point.

“I’m biased, but I have heard other coaches say the staff did its best job this year,” said Patterson’s wife, Kelsey. “When you have player after player go down, I don’t know if anybody on our staff has ever seen a year like this. When it happens on a Saturday, you have to have a new game plan for the next Saturday. They’ve done an amazing job. And they’re good people. It’s nice to be around them. They’re all great people.

“I think the staff has done a great job of managing expectations and setting the kids up for the future in that life doesn’t always go the way you planned it. I think the team is in a good place. The coaches have done a great job, and we’ll see if we have enough bodies on the field come the day after Christmas. It’s going to be fun. There’s no bad bowl game.”

The latest count on injured players for TCU is between 27 and 30 sustained season-ending injuries, and about 40 combined missed at least four games with various injuries.

The silver lining through it all is that a season of this nature revealed the foundation of TCU’s program under Patterson. He described the Baylor victory last month as what his program is all about – a gritty defensive effort and a fifth-year senior quarterback, Grayson Muehlstein, stepping in off the bench to manage the offense well enough.

Now it’s about closing out the season with a winning record.

“Coming into the season, we won 40 ball games in four years,” Patterson said. “For [the seniors] to get back to a bowl game, especially a bowl game like this, get an opportunity to play against a good opponent and that’s how they get a chance to end their career, hopefully with a win and a winning season. It is big for us.

“Just sitting here is a success story with everything they went through, with all of the injuries that we had. In 36 years, I’ve never been through anything like this.”

That’s why this season may be Patterson’s best.