TCU and Texas was a penalty-filled mess, but it wasn’t on the Cheez-It Bowl level
TCU football coach Gary Patterson smirked and then shot down any comparison of Saturday’s 33-31 victory over Texas to TCU’s 10-7 overtime victory over Cal in the 2018 Cheez-It Bowl.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever play in a game that will rank up with the Cheez-It Bowl,” Patterson said. “I’m just going to tell you that right now. You just have to stand on the sidelines to be a part of that. That’s like, ‘Happy New Year.’ Holy moly.”
But Saturday’s game made a run for its money. The Cheez-It Bowl had interceptions. This game had penalties.
There were 26 penalties, ranging from the opening kickoff being run three times to Patterson being called for sideline interference after knocking down an official to an off-sides penalty by TCU on a field-goal attempt.
TCU was flagged 14 times for 109 yards, while Texas drew 12 penalties for 92 yards. The Cheez-It Bowl, meanwhile, had nine interceptions and less than 200 yards passing — combined (Cal threw for 164 yards, while TCU finished with 28 yards).
Half of the penalties (13) on Saturday were called in the first quarter.
The opening quarter took more than one hour to play. The most costly penalty may have been against Texas for an ineligible player down field, wiping away a 47-yard pass play.
The second quarter featured four combined penalties, including a targeting penalty that resulted in Texas LB Juwan Mitchell being ejected. TCU had an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty in the quarter by safety La’Kendrick Van Zandt. Van Zandt returned an interception to the Texas 5, but then shoved UT tight end Cade Brewer after the play.
Instead of a first-and-goal from the 5, TCU took over on the UT 20 and settled for a field goal.
The third quarter had eight penalties, including an off-sides by Texas on the opening kickoff. That’s also the quarter when Patterson was called for sideline interference, which aided a TD drive by Texas.
Van Zandt had another costly penalty in the third quarter when he jumped off-sides on a UT field-goal attempt. That penalty prompted the Longhorns to go for it on a fourth-and-2, and they scored a TD on the play.
“You can’t jump off-sides,” Patterson said. “We should have said, ‘Safe,’ and not even try to block it. Simple.”
And one penalty came in the fourth quarter when TCU had 12 men on the field. The officials actually called TCU for holding on the final play when QB Max Duggan took a safety, but eventually waived it off.
TCU took a safety to close out a 38-36 victory over Stanford in 2007.
“It was better to take the safety then it was to try to punt it,” Patterson said. “You wanted to take the ball out of their hands. It was simple.”
Duggan said the safety play is something the Frogs work on in practice. It’s part of the end-of-game situations they prepare for.
“We practice it every single week. We were prepared for it,” Duggan said. “We practice late game scenarios like that so we’re prepared. Our coaches do a great job preparing us for any situation.”
Outside of the penalties, the game featured other unique plays such as Texas RB Keaontay Ingram fumbling the ball away on the 1-yard line for a go-ahead touchdown late in the game.
At the end of the day, as he was with the Cheez-It Bowl victory, Patterson is just happy to walk away with a victory.
“For us, not playing how we wanted to last week against Iowa State and to come out and get a chance to win on the road at Texas, it’s a big deal to us,” Patterson said.
