TCU’s favorite stooge, Texas, a reveal for Gary Patterson’s Horned Frogs | Opinion
You know there are problems when Gary Patterson and TCU can’t even beat Texas.
It only took TCU and Patterson about 20 years to arrive at this point together in their journey, but we are here.
TCU can panic, and pull a Texas, or pull an Iowa and just deal with it.
Pick the latter.
The football program that elevated the entire status of the school is just ish.
The amazing part isn’t that TCU and GP are at that point in this trip, but that it took this long to reach this juncture.
On Saturday in Fort Worth, the team that TCU and Gary love to beat whipped them on their way out of the Big 12. Unlike his predecessors, new Texas coach Steve Sarkisian defeated TCU, 32-27.
The refs were a bit bad to unpredictable, but officiating is not the reason TCU lost at home to Texas for the first time since 2013.
The ejection of defensive back for targeting T.J. Carter was a borderline call, but that wasn’t the reason TCU lost.
TCU’s first four games of this season have been played at Amon G. Carter Stadium, and the Horned Frogs are but 2-2.
Since winning the Alamo Bowl to conclude the 2015 season, TCU is an OK football program. The Horned Frogs are 37-29 since the start of the 2016 season.
This includes the 2017 season when TCU was 11-3, reached the Big 12 title game, won the Alamo Bowl and finished eighth in the final AP Poll.
That was the last time TCU finished the season ranked. It’s hard to see how this team finishes in the Top 25 this season.
A lot of schools in this situation overreact to their anger, frustration and dump the coach, regardless of resume.
Ask Texas how this works out.
UT dumped its national-title winning head coach, Mack Brown, after the 2013 season because the program was flat.
Three coaches, and tens of millions of dollars later, and UT is still not so sure it has the right guy (Sark’, beat Oklahoma first).
Kirk Ferentz has been Iowa’s head coach since 1999, and suffered through a blah period or two. The Hawkeyes are currently ranked fifth in the nation, and have finished in the Top 25 every season since 2018.
Gary Patterson is a young 61, and he’s not mailing it in. He’s not some golf-playing coach whose program is run by his assistants.
GP is not going to be fired. Nor should he be fired. And he’s bleeping sure not going to quit. But he needs to get real about some things about his team.
The program has finally reached that malaise, or lull, that so many teams inevitably go through under the same coaching staff.
Unless your name is Saban, and Alabama, all college football teams go through a slide.
The question or concern for TCU is how to get out of it.
The obvious place to start is the quarterback position, and now its defense, too.
Since Trevone Boykin left the program, TCU has had one good season at quarterback, from fifth-year senior Kenny Hill, in 2017.
They have committed to Max Duggan since he was a freshman, but now in his third year as the starting quarterback he has not progressed at a desirable rate for a player who has played this much.
“There are a lot of things I missed,” Duggan said after the game.
He’s not bad.
On Saturday he combined some good, and less-than-good.
Unlike Gary’s teams that rolled in the previous conferences — Conference USA and the Mountain West Conference — they are not going to reach their standards without consistent high-end production from the quarterback.
Now in its 10th year of the Big 12, TCU’s three best seasons in this league all featured good to great seasons from Boykin or Hill.
It’s not that simple, but it’s just that simple.
It’s not like Patterson hasn’t tried. He’s changed offensive coordinators, and offensive philosophies.
These are the results.
And now his defense can’t stop anyone.
TCU has given up at least 30 points in three consecutive games. It gave up 30 or more three times all last season.
Three running backs have run for more than 100 yards in the last two games against TCU.
This is all happening because the team is just a tick above average.
And TCU has two choices: Panic, or just deal with it.
Panic doesn’t work.
Ask Texas.
