TCU football coach to address SMU scuffle as Frogs look to rebound against Texas
It’s Texas week but TCU coach Gary Patterson is expected to address the postgame scuffle that unfolded with SMU during his midweek news conference on Tuesday.
Patterson alleged in his postgame remarks that an SMU player used a helmet that injured TCU special assistant Jerry Kill following Saturday’s game. Multiple videos of the postgame scuffle show that Kill was knocked down by his own players, not an SMU player, at one point.
TCU officials believe Kill might’ve been knocked down during a separate incident, but haven’t found video evidence supporting that claim. Kill had to be treated for injuries after the scuffle, sources said.
The scuffle started when SMU players tried to “plant” their school’s flag on TCU’s midfield, similar to what former Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield did at Ohio State in 2017.
Patterson is expected to put the incident to rest Tuesday. Athletic director Jeremiah Donati is not expected to address the matter.
SMU officials haven’t spoken about the situation, either, other than coach Sonny Dykes saying during his postgame news conference that his players shouldn’t have tried to plant the flag.
“I’ll talk to them about that,” Dykes said. “We don’t want to do something like that. There’s nobody in the world that has more respect for TCU or for Gary Patterson and how they run their program, the longevity he’s had here, there’s nobody in the world that has more respect for him than I do. If that happened, that shouldn’t have happened. I feel bad for that. I apologize for that.
“Our guys were excited. It’s a battle for credibility for us. It always is.”
Texas week
TCU is 7-2 against Texas since joining the Big 12 in 2012, but the Longhorns are under a new regime once again.
New coach Steve Sarkisian is off to a 3-1 start, including a 70-35 victory over Texas Tech on Saturday.
“We’re not naive to the fact we’re 2-7 against TCU the last nine years,” Sarkisian told reporters Monday. “We’re also not going to buy the lie that we’re going to play the same TCU team that just played SMU on Saturday.”
TCU, of course, had one of its worst defensive performances in recent years with SMU piling up almost 600 yards of total offense.
The Frogs are determined to respond this week in their Big 12 opener.
“Coming off a loss a lot of people will get down,” quarterback Max Duggan said after Saturday’s game. “It’s a crappy loss and we’re not happy about it but we’ve got to go in and move on. We’ve got conference play coming up. Texas next week and we’ve got to work on the things we need to work on and execute and hopefully get on a roll in conference play.”
Tech time
TCU’s game at Texas Tech on Oct. 9 has been set for 6 p.m. on ESPN. TCU has won its last three games in Lubbock — 33-31 in 2019; 27-3 in 2017; and 55-52 in 2015.
The Frogs have won three of the last four meetings with the Red Raiders, too, including a 34-18 victory last season in Fort Worth.
This story was originally published September 27, 2021 at 3:59 PM.
