COVID aside, TCU’s problem is the same one Mack Brown had at Texas
The 2020 college football season is a joke, and nothing should count.
“It counts. You’ve had a couple of coaches fired already,” TCU coach Gary Patterson said Monday on the Big 12 coaches’ conference call.
Fair point, even if no coach should be canned over a result in 2020.
Former Ohio State and Florida coach turned Fox Sports analyst Urban Meyer ruffled TCU’s gills on Saturday when he said the team “doesn’t look right.”
Urban, exactly what “looks right” these days?
Notre Dame is playing a conference schedule, the best team in the Big Ten is Indiana, and on Nov. 16 the leader of the Pac-12 has an overall record of 2-0.
The only thing that looks right in 2020 is the sunrise. Everything thereafter is another headline we don’t want.
The accomplishment this season is not winning the game, but playing the game. Anything more than that is a case of free beer.
If college football is going to plow through COVID and squeeze in as many games as possible for a TV audience, these glorified scrimmages are still useful to people beyond just degenerate gamblers.
TCU doesn’t look right because GP now is going through exactly what Mack Brown did in Austin years ago, which ultimately led to his dismissal.
Gary can hire 25 more offensive assistant coaches, but if his offensive line continues to be offensive, and his quarterback continues to miss the open receiver, something is always going to look “not right.”
Quarterback Max Duggan doesn’t look that much different in this his second season as a starting quarterback than he did last year as a freshman when he would combine promising with freshman mistakes, often on the same drive.
Unless, of course, he’s playing Texas.
Against Texas, Duggan is a hybrid of Tom Brady and Kyler Murray. Duggan is 2-0 against UT, and is 39-of-57 passing for 504 yards, with two touchdowns, one interception. And he’s run the ball 30 times for 151 yards and three scores.
Shame he can’t play UT every week.
He’s played 19 games at TCU, and he has often looked like a player who is powering through pain. Duggan’s offensive line has at times done him zero favors. The same for his receivers.
And he’s also missed passes with inconsistent accuracy, and decision making.
With 4:55 remaining in the third quarter in TCU’s game at West Virginia on Saturday, Duggan had time and missed a wide open Taye Barber in the end zone by several yards.
TCU was not going to win that game, but Duggan can’t miss that throw.
That’s one example, and there are others.
As a quarterback, Duggan is a better runner than passer. That’s a problem.
Duggan was supposed to solve the QB issue that TCU has had since Kenny Hill finished in 2017.
But Shawn Robinson transferred. Justin Rogers sustained an injury. Michael Collins was never a long-term solution. And the same goes for Alex Delton.
This is starting to look all hauntingly similar to the 2010 Texas Longhorns, the year after Colt McCoy led them to the national title game.
UT proceeded to run through a diet of Garrett Gilbert, Case McCoy, David Ash, Tyrone Swoopes, Jerrod Heard and Shane Buechele before Sam Ehlinger “solved” the issue, even though the same problem remains.
The difference is in 2010, Brown put all of his future on Gilbert, and it never worked out. Mack admitted later he stopped recruiting quarterbacks when you just have to keep bringing them in and let them transfer when it becomes apparent they are not going to play.
TCU is 32-27 in the past five seasons, but Gary is not about to be pushed anywhere except towards another extension.
GP has brought in quarterbacks, but the issue is still an issue.
Duggan has showed enough to keep the job, but not enough for anyone to feel secure about the team’s direction. This isn’t going up, nor is it going down.
TCU has two (scheduled) games remaining, including one at Kansas. Because the NCAA dumped typical bowl eligibility requirements, TCU will be able to play in a bowl game if it wants to, which it will.
Everything about 2020 is off, including this mess of a college football season. No one should be held to the typical standards.
COVID should buy everyone in the sport a year of grace, but that doesn’t change the fact TCU still has an issue at QB.
