TCU football followed its game plan to perfection to grind out big win at Kansas
TCU football wasn’t going to complicate things at Kansas on Saturday night.
“Our whole thing was to run the football,” coach Gary Patterson said. “That was what they were going to allow us to do. When we did throw, we threw. But the whole theme was kind of, ‘How do you get the game over with as quick as you can?’”
Mission accomplished with a dominant 59-23 victory over the Jayhawks in Lawrence.
TCU rushed for a season-high 337 yards on 41 carries. True freshman Zach Evans made his first career start and had 100 yards on 12 carries. Redshirt freshman Darwin Barlow had 83 yards on eight carries with one TD, while quarterback Max Duggan added 61 yards on three carries including a 58-yard TD run.
True freshman Kendre Miller (54 yards on 11 carries), junior running back Emari Demercado (33 yards on six carries) and wide receiver Taye Barber (7 yards on one carry) rounded out the rushing attack.
More impressively, TCU had its success on the ground with a depleted offensive line. Yes, KU has the Big 12’s worst rushing defense, but TCU entered the game without three key offensive linemen including starters Steve Avila and Austin Myers, and reserve Kellton Hollins.
Patterson said the team entered with only five O-linemen who had playing experience.
“We didn’t want to get into a drop-back game just for the simple reason we were down to only five guys,” Patterson said. “We were missing some defensive linemen also, so you’ve got to go find a way to win. It was one of those games where you’re down probably 40 guys counting everything. To get here and get a win, it doesn’t matter who you play, it’s important.”
TCU improved to 4-0 when rushing for at least 200 yards this season. The program is 99-8 when reaching that mark in the Patterson era.
It may not be the sexiest way to play these days — heck, even Duggan said he’d take a 50-yard touchdown pass over a 50-yard touchdown run — but it’s a formula that has worked for the Frogs.
The running back corps is among the strengths of this team. Evans is the highest-rated recruit in program history and is starting to make his presence felt.
Patterson raved about the entire unit following the game, although he didn’t know why Evans earned the starting nod.
“We like them all,” Patterson said. “Really I don’t know why they started Zach Evans to be honest with you. I’ll ask them the question, but I think it came down to the plays they wanted to call and that was his plays. I don’t know why he did, but I was happy with all the running backs.”
Everybody, of course, was happy with the final result. TCU had struggled in games at Kansas since joining the Big 12, but that storyline faded before the end of the first quarter.
TCU jumped out to a 24-0 lead and never slowed down.
“Once we got up, we knew we had to keep going and didn’t want to stop,” Duggan said. “We wanted to try and keep scoring and put them in a predicament. That was the big thing that Coach P was preaching, that the whole staff was preaching, ‘Don’t let up. Don’t let them try and come back and keep their hope up.’
“So we had to keep focusing, keep working on ourselves and our game plan.”
A game plan that called for a heavy dose of running the ball.
TCU (4-4, 4-4 Big 12) faces Oklahoma State (6-2, 5-2) next Saturday in Fort Worth.
This story was originally published November 29, 2020 at 3:23 PM.
