How’d Gary Patterson defend Kyler Murray and Tua Tagovailoa? We’ll find out

TCU coach Gary Patterson impressed as a TV analyst a year ago.

So it’s no surprise that ESPN is bringing back the longtime Frogs coach to serve on its “Coaches Film Room” telecast during Saturday’s Oklahoma-Alabama game in the Orange Bowl, one of College Football Playoff semifinals.

Patterson will be able to offer first-hand experience in how he went about trying to contain Heisman Trophy winner Kyler Murray this season. It’ll also be interesting to see what he says about slowing down Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa, who finished runner-up in the Heisman race.

TCU held Murray to his lowest yards passing total in Big 12 play. Murray finished 19 of 24 for 213 yards passing with four touchdowns and no interceptions in the Sooners’ 52-27 victory.

Patterson will work alongside Boston College’s Steve Addazio, Arizona State’s Herm Edwards and Boise State’s Bryan Harsin.

Patterson received rave reviews for his job last season, and it served as another avenue to promote his program.

But Patterson acknowledged the long year its been for him this season. TCU dealt with a number of injuries, but managed to win its final three games -- including a wild 10-7 overtime victory in the Cheez-It Bowl on Wednesday -- for the 14th winning season in Patterson’s 18 years.

Asked if he’d give himself a few days to get away, Patterson said: “We’re going to get home, going to help a little bit with the playoff games. And then about [January] 2nd or 3rd or 4th, we can start looking at recruits for 2020. And we’ll probably have junior days at the end of January. So, this time of year, there is no rest. But we’ll get a chance to get home, get a chance to get a couple nights for everybody to rest a little bit and not have to worry about things and do things. It’s been a great year.

“We don’t want everything that these guys have done here in the last part of the season to go to waste. So recruiting-wise and off-season-wise, we’ll need to work with the younger guys, because we’re going to lose some good players on defense. So, for us, we need to be able to grow some guys up so we can play at the same level that we’ve been able to play over the last 20 years.”