Patterson not lessening demands of TCU defense, learning or not

The TCU defense played better last week, perhaps better than it has all season. That was clear from coach Gary Patterson’s reaction, wasn’t it?

Hmm, linebacker Travin Howard thought to himself.

Hmm ...

“Coach P is Coach P,” he said finally and smiled. “There’s always room for improvement.”

“He did,” Howard said.

But?

“But it’s time to go back to work.”

For Patterson and TCU, that means continuing to try to get the defense closer to the form expected when the season began. It won’t get all the way back — four players are gone for the season, and another shows no signs of coming back.

But the returns of senior defensive tackle Davion Pierson and senior defensive end Mike Tuaua in the past two weeks have helped, along with nearly a half-season of experience for the 14 defensive players who have made their first college starts this year — a list that added redshirt freshman safety Ridwan “Ray” Issahaku last week.

“By your Game 6, you should probably be getting out of that freshman mode,” Patterson said.

The Texas game may be evidence that is happening. Freshman linebacker Montrel Wilson led the team in tackles last week and is the team’s leading tackler. Howard, a sophomore, led the team in tackles two weeks ago and is the second-leading tackler.

Nick Orr, a sophomore who has started at safety and cornerback, leads the team in pass breakups and fumble recoveries. Senior cornerback Corry O’Meally has started the past two games.

“Every week is different,” Howard said. “You get better every week. You’re picking up on things.”

In the big picture, yes.

But too many details remain for Patterson.

“We still missed too many tackles,” he said. “We’ve got to still tackle better. We played faster, but we’ve got to tackle if you’re going to win ballgames against people that run the football.”

Patterson said he can live with the 3.7 yards Texas averaged on 51 rushes last week. But not the 22 missed tackles he counted.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had 22 missed tackles in a ballgame in my lifetime here,” he said.

This week’s game against Kansas State will test the Horned Frogs’ development. The Wildcats’ offense looks more like Minnesota’s — option, reads, “a lot like what we used to be like,” Patterson said.

This time, the experience of Pierson will help the defensive line, and Patterson expects Tuaua to be better in his second game since his three-week suspension. If defensive end Terrell Lathan, injured against SMU, can also play and bring his experience to the field, all the better.

“It’s just different,” Patterson said. “This is not a new experience, especially if you’re playing read offenses.”

But the Frogs remain young and learning in a lot of spots. A veteran offense will remain a challenge to players such as Howard, Wilson and others among the least experienced on defense.

For now, Patterson does not want them to try to do more than asked.

“Young guys are not what I call ‘overlap’ players, as a general rule, meaning they can do their job and somebody else’s,” he said. “They need to do their job. But it was good enough to win that ballgame, so now we need to go see if we can be better and if we can win this ballgame.

“I think we have to approach it like that. There’s no frill to it.”

This story was originally published October 6, 2015 at 5:54 PM with the headline "Patterson not lessening demands of TCU defense, learning or not."