Inside TCU’s approach to preparing for No. 2 Michigan
It can be challenging for teams and players to make game preparations during the grind of the college football season.
Teams typically have two or three days to implement a gameplan for an opponent. This time, it’s different for No. 3 TCU.
The Horned Frogs have had four weeks to plot a strategy for No. 2 Michigan in their College Football Playoff semifinal in the Fiesta Bowl on Saturday.
That should makes thing a lot easier in terms of preparation, right? Yes and no.
“We’ve got to be careful as coaches and players,” TCU defensive coordinator Joe Gillespie said on Tuesday. “The more you watch, the more you take in; the more you want to put in and the more you try to defend.”
While both teams have an intimate knowledge of the other’s strength and tendencies, Gillespie noted it’s important not to rely solely on that. Trying to create a scheme that accounts for everything sounds good in theory, but can put a lot of mental stress on the players, especially on defense.
Gillespie leaned on some of his coaching contacts to find the best way to find balance in cooking a defensive scheme for the Wolverines.
“I’ve never been in this position at this point of the season at this level, I reached out to several people that had,” Gillespie said. “I just tried to gain a little wisdom and find out what they learned from being in this same spot. One of the common denominators was, the bigger the game, the smaller the plan.
“You can get yourself into a problem of trying to defend everything and what we want to do is dance with who brought us there. Don’t try to sit there and reinvent the wheel now. At the same time Michigan is different than what we’ve got to see week in and week out through the season.”
Gillespie acknowledged TCU must do things it hasn’t done all year when facing the Wolverines’ stout offensive line.
“Right now it looks good on paper, good at practice,” Gillespie said. “Now we’re going to have to put it out on the field and see how it fares against Michigan.”
The players have been satisfied with how the gameplan has been rolled out to them. Another potential concern for retaining information is how tiresome it can become to watch the same team and plays over and over again for weeks.
“Things can get monotonous,” cornerback Josh Newton said. “Things can get boring, like okay, we’ve seen it so many times. So the main thing is not letting the stuff get boring because this is what they’re showing us.”
One approach TCU has used is competition in practice and Tuesday’s practice at Notre Dame Prep was full of energy.
“We’re doing much more good on good,” cornerback Tre’Vius Hodges-Tomlinson said. “We’re making sure we’re getting the most of practices with competition. This week has been about Michigan hard, like we prepared (for opponents) during the season.
“Watching a team over and over again can get stale, but as player you should be watching film constantly even if you’re not with the team. That’s something that I do a lot and I understand this is a big game.”
In terms of what they saw on film, the defensive players available to the media on Tuesday were very complimentary of Michigan’s offensive line
“They’re a really good offensive line group,” defensive lineman Dylan Horton said. “They won the (national) award for best offensive line group.”
It’ll be a physical challenge trying to outmatch the Wolverines’ line, but Horton thinks the Big 12 grind could help TCU.
“It’s prepared us really well,” Horton said. “In many games we’ve had to be the most physical team and we’re hoping to show that this week.”
This story was originally published December 27, 2022 at 3:38 PM.
