TCU’s Patterson says he had to suspend Boykin, who ‘jumped’ curfew on arrest night

TCU coach Gary Patterson said he had to make a decision he didn’t want to make in suspending quarterback Trevone Boykin and sending him home from the Alamo Bowl after his arrest this week.

“It’s unfortunate for him, because Trevone has meant so much to TCU,” Patterson said Friday in a joint press conference with Oregon coach Mark Helfrich ahead of Saturday’s game. “We love him. But he understands.”

Boykin was arrested early Thursday morning, accused of hitting a San Antonio police officer after an altercation with bar patrons. He was charged with assault of a public servant, public intoxication and resisting arrest.

“It wasn’t even a conversation between him and I,” Patterson said. “I talked to him later. But it’s one of those situations — he was there at curfew, and then I got a call early in the morning that he wasn’t there at curfew.”

Reserve receiver Preston Miller was also suspended. The police report said Boykin was with a group, but Patterson said he knew of no other players involved.

“Obviously, as head coaches, you all have to make decisions, do things sometimes you don’t want to do,” Patterson said.

He continued, “I saw a stat where three of the four playoff teams had to send somebody home. One of the things I think people don’t give head coaches enough credit for is trying to raise men.”

Patterson said he couldn’t give Boykin a pass.

“You’re not just teaching him, you’re teaching the other 120 guys that are on your team, that they understand all your actions have a reaction, and you have to learn from it,” Patterson said. “Let’s just say that nothing happened, but he’s bragging that he jumped curfew and he went out and played a great game. Then I’m going to have the same problem next year.”

Patterson said he sympathized, however.

“Really, my feelings went out to him and for my team, because obviously, he’s the starter,” Patterson said. “He’s a veteran. But we’ll play another quarterback, and they’ll do just fine. Just like anybody else, I’m a fan. I want to see Vernon [Adams Jr.] versus Trevone. When you stand on the sideline, coaches are kind of like fans — you want to see all of it. You came here, got to the end of the year, you want that last ballgame to be everything you want. Hopefully it is.”

Oregon’s Helfrich backed Patterson’s decision.

“We make a lot of very tough decisions,” Helfrich said. “That’s a very easy difficult decision in terms of teaching people. This is a developing young man. Everybody learns from an unfortunate situation. Nobody wants that to happen. It’s an unfortunate reality for every single program in the country. You have to make those decisions.”

Helfrich said his team still has its hands full against TCU.

“We watched the Oklahoma film, too, of an outstanding team they had beat multiple times,” Helfrich said. “Those guys have great football players surrounded by great football players. They have a lot of people that can make that thing go.”

Patterson said the Horned Frogs had a good practice Thursday, their last before the game, their first without Boykin.

“One of the things is, they’ve played without him before. You have to go forward,” Patterson said. “I think the other thing that helps us, we understand the film, we understand the type of team we’re playing. You have a team that played for a national championship a year ago.”

Patterson said a challenge for him has been finding a focus in a bowl environment for a team that has played 30 freshmen.

“They know all their friends, relatives are downstairs,” Patterson said. “Really, it becomes more the mindset than it is those other guys. Been here 18 years. There’s some traditions of how you do things. Your older kids carry those. Really, I’ve looked to them to make sure that they keep everybody where they need to be and how they need to do it. Obviously, one of them didn’t.”

This story was originally published January 1, 2016 at 11:54 AM with the headline "TCU’s Patterson says he had to suspend Boykin, who ‘jumped’ curfew on arrest night."