Message received? TCU’s Zach Evans earns Big 12 honors for Week 2
Gary Patterson spent a good portion of his postgame news conference following TCU’s 34-32 victory over Cal on Saturday talking about sophomore running back Zach Evans.
Evans had a breakout game, rushing for a career-best 190 yards on a career-high 22 carries. His 51-yard touchdown near the end of the first half ranked among the most pivotal plays of the game.
But Patterson vented more about the lack of preseason buzz surrounding Evans than anything else. Well, that message appears to have been received.
Evans earned Big 12 offensive player of the week honors on Monday. Patterson addressed Evans’ honors during a Big 12 coaches teleconference when asked about how Evans can sustain that level of play the rest of the season.
“Just keep doing what he’s doing,” Patterson said. “Like I said, we don’t need to talk about him. Nobody thought he was a good player before we started so we’re going to keep moving forward and understand we have two or three guys who can really run the football.
“But I’m real excited for Zach. We’ve just got to keep him healthy. That’s the biggest key for everything else.”
Patterson’s beef about Evans not receiving much preseason love is validated. Dave Campbell’s Texas Football, for instance, didn’t include Evans on its All-Texas College team.
Instead, the magazine went with UTSA running back Sincere McCormick and Texas A&M’s Isaiah Spiller as the first-team players. Second-team honors went to Texas’ Bijan Robinson and SMU’s Ulysses Bentley IV.
In fairness, McCormick was coming off a season in which he rushed for 1,467 yards and Spiller also had a 1,000-yard season in 2020. Robinson flashed during his freshman season as did Bentley with 11 rushing TDs.
However, Evans was once the highest-rated recruit in the country and closed the 2020 season with 100-yard rushing days in two of the final three games. It’s easy to see why Patterson remains miffed about Evans being snubbed of preseason hype.
For his part, though, Evans doesn’t seem to mind. He talked about his transition to the college game and becoming a team-first player.
“The chemistry is great,” Evans said. “We don’t really have a set starter. We just rotate. It’s all about what you do outside of football and we’re always with each other and talking about the next game. We always watch film, so it’s about how we stay together and stay strong.”
Evans later added that he’s OK with whatever workload the coaching staff gives him during a game. Whether it’s 20-plus carries or 10 carries, Evans said, “I’m going to make something happen.”
It’s that mindset that has Patterson and others within the program excited about his potential the rest of the way.
“He’s going to motivate himself. We won’t have to worry about him,” Patterson said. “He does a great job doing that. He’s become one of our leaders.”
Along with Evans, Oklahoma State’s Malcolm Rodriguez (co-defensive) and LD Brown (special teams), Baylor’s JT Woods (co-defensive) and K-State’s Felix Anudike-Uzomah (newcomer) were the other Big 12 honorees.
Early kick for SMU
The Big 12 announced game times for the Sept. 25 weekend. TCU and SMU will kick off at 11 a.m. on Fox Sports 1 in the 100th meeting for the Iron Skillet at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth.
While fans usually aren’t thrilled with early kickoffs, TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati said it’s not something schools can worry too much about.
“We can’t get too concerned about things out of our control,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to kick off the day of college football. We’ll be ready.”
TCU leads the all-time series 51-41-7. SMU won the last meeting 41-38 in 2019 in Fort Worth. The game wasn’t played last year due to scheduling issues amid the coronavirus pandemic.
This story was originally published September 13, 2021 at 11:02 AM.
