FORT WORTH — Gary Patterson might have made a good news writer on deadline. He gets to the point quickly.
“As usual, we’ve got our hands full,” he said to open his press conference for Oklahoma week.
“Both sides of the ball.”
See? That’s the story for the Horned Frogs against the Sooners. Every year. Hands full. The faces change, the numbers change, the location changes, but the story remains the same. Every year, hands full.
“Normal OU team,” Patterson said. “Very athletic. And so you’ve got to get ready to play, especially when you play them in Norman.”
TCU enters Saturday’s game having lost five straight to the Sooners since a stirring 37-33 victory in Fort Worth in 2014 capped by Paul Dawson’s pick-six. In the five-game slide since are a close call (2015’s broken-up two-point conversion), a 52-46 loss in Fort Worth that left Patterson saying close doesn’t count, two not-close losses to Baker Mayfield in 2017 and last season’s 52-27 home loss to Kyler Murray, who double-dipped victories in football and baseball against the Frogs that year.
Before that, the previous victory was 2005. You remember 2005.
But in all, it’s 14-5 Oklahoma, 9-2 against Patterson, with 41 points on average in the last six meetings, 52 twice.
Why?
“Their athletes,” Patterson said, deadline writer instinct kicking in again. “What it’s been for about the last 100 years. No matter what offense they’ve run, whether it’s Barry Switzer in the triple option or anything else. They’ve got Lincoln now. The thing that they do is, they don’t let you overload them. They do a great job of keeping you spread out. They do a really terrific job.”
So terrific, frankly, that even Patterson hasn’t been able to solve yet. Of course, he’s not alone there. Of course, he also doesn’t care that he isn’t the only coach having trouble stopping OU.
If TCU has designs on winning Big 12 championships, getting past Oklahoma is a must. It’s the one school in the Big 12 the Frogs haven’t been able to pin down.
“There’s a lot of top minds in this league, to be honest with you,” Patterson said, asked about Lincoln Riley’s contributions to the conference’s reputation for shredding defenses. “But he is. They’ve had our number the last couple years. So we’ve got to do a better job offensively. Defensively, I mean, we’ve allowed too many big plays.”
More than one coach can say that after a few rounds with the Sooners.
But yes, stopping the big play is a sound idea. See what the Baylor Bears did last week? OU had to change its stripes and go small-ball in its amazing comeback. You’re asking: What good did it do? The Sooners still scored 24 in the second half.
True. But if Baylor gets more than 16 snaps on offense in the second half, the Sooner rally is very likely thwarted. The Bears executed half the formula.
Is TCU equipped to execute both halves of the equation? This is a Horned Frogs team that is, shall we say, youngish on defense. They don’t get a lot of sacks. They’re fast, and they’ve gotten opportunistic lately with takeaways. Patterson will have his best plan. Against the Sooners, it will take all that and more.
“It’s one of those things where you’ve got to get ready to play and understand you’ve got to watch for all kinds,” Patterson said. “And you got to tackle and you got to get them lined up.”
The last time TCU visited Norman, it was also for a night game. At kickoff, Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, capacity 80,126, appeared ready to burst at the seams with every seat filled.
TCU had its hands full.
“Big-time football. Big-time football,” TCU center Kellton Hollins said. “This is everything you dream of when you say you want to come to TCU and play football. You dream of going through Norman, Okla, and possibly getting a Big 12 championship.”
The game plan early is … keep it a game.
“I think I saw it was 28-14 last year barely starting the second quarter,” Patterson said. “So we need to understand we need to start faster, both sides of the ball.”
Actually it was 28-7 at 8:25 of the second quarter. Every writer needs a good editor. But Patterson’s point is correct.
Keep it a game and see what happens. There may be a story to tell on deadline.
(Photo by TCU Athletics)
