FORT WORTH — Gary Patterson is a counter.
How many days to this. How many practices to that. How many minutes from the hotel to the stadium, home and away.
He knows all of it. The TCU football coach’s mind operates with time-measuring software running quietly and constantly in the background.
“Week 3 for us and Week 4 for the rest of college football,” he said to open his weekly press conference Tuesday.
True. And before anyone in the Four Sevens Team Room at TCU could even nod, Patterson relayed its significance.
“Our first week with one-week preparation,” he said.
Of course. Should have known.
Everything has meaning to the Horned Frogs’ boss: where and when meetings are held, who goes to Media Day, what everyone eats before a game, sideline body language, the choice to practice inside or outside as Fort Worth summers wear on and on.
Week 1 provided the chance to take the tarp off his football team and see what they had retained from spring practice and fall camp. To that end, Patterson pop-quizzed his team in real time in the mildly underwhelming 39-7 victory against Arkansas Pine Bluff.
“I tried to do some things to see if guys knew what they were doing, and sadly, I was right — we didn’t know how to do some of them,” he said.
Week 2 presented a self-eval opportunity, and Patterson didn’t waste it. For newcomers, and there are many, it was a chance to observe how to take advantage of extra time to rest and prepare.
In Week 3, the Frogs hit the road for the first time and learned the routine, from a walk-through on a foreign field for the first time to winning the game to coming home on time. “We have a saying: when we walk into a stadium for the first time, look up. When you walk out of the tunnel for a game, don’t look above your pads,” he said before last week’s 34-13 thorough victory at Purdue.
So Week 4 . . . another stage test for the Frogs. Now ranked (No. 25), they play a nearby rival that knows them well, their best opponent so far. SMU will enter Amon G. Carter Stadium on Saturday at 3-0 for the first time since 1984. That’s pre-dea– well, never mind. That’s from another era. Let’s just say you have to be of a certain age to remember the last time the Mustangs got out of the gate so hot.
“SMU is a good football team and doing a great job,” Patterson said. “Really, if you watched the end of last year, I thought they started coming on. I was paying attention. They’re running the football well and throwing the deep ball well. They play together and hard on defense. We have a lot of work to do.”
This week is critical for self-scouting again. Mustangs head coach Sonny Dykes and receivers coach David Gru spent 2017 at TCU as offensive analysts. SMU safeties coach Trey Haverty spent five years at TCU, most recently 2012 as receivers coach.
They know Patterson, and Patterson knows them.
“They watched me all night last year,” Patterson said, recalling 2018’s rain-soaked 42-12 victory. “You have four or five guys that have been inside our walls. But you still have to play the game, and that’s the way it is. As soon as you start worrying about that kind of stuff, you have problems.”
Truthfully, it’s nothing new for Patterson. Coaches see former assistants on the other sideline all the time. The longer they last, the more it happens.
And Patterson has seen SMU plenty — 17 times as a head coach (he’s 15-2). He’s seen the Ponies’ new quarterback twice. Shane Buechele threw one touchdown and was sacked 11 times in two losses to TCU when he played for Texas.
Nowadays, the former Longhorn is completing 66.3 percent of his passes, averaging nearly 300 yards a game with five touchdown passes against three interceptions and three sacks.
“For them, he’s giving them consistency,” Patterson said. “He’s a guy that has played in big ballgames, and he checks into things how he’s supposed to.”
Preparing for a familiar foe is another stage in a season. Might as well happen now, with Big 12 games against annual foes starting next week. (Another stage in a season).
“It’s like playing a conference game, you play each other every year,” Patterson said of the upcoming meeting against the visitors from the Hilltop.
It will be the 99th game in the series and the 52nd in Fort Worth, where the Frogs are 28-18-5. Overall, TCU has won 11 of 12 and 17 of 19.
But who’s counting?
