LAWRENCE, Kan. — The squeaky wheel got the grease Saturday afternoon.
And he fumbled it at the 7-yard line.
In a season already filled with lessons learned and opportunities squandered, it was just the latest chapter.
Though Kansas students charged the field – “Alcohol, proudly emboldening college kids for over 150 years” – and some pundits took to Twitter to anoint it as the latest Miracle on the Plains, you could see this 27-26 TCU defeat coming like one of those slow-developing power sweeps the Frogs finally decided to run.
Speaking of Twitter, LaTerria Anderson didn’t exactly help the Frogs’ cause, either.
A frequent critic of her son’s lack of carries, mama Anderson might have touched a new sensitive nerve last week when she tweeted, “I’m tired of the antics and I need answers.”
All moms want their sons to play. I get that. But Twitter is not the place to express it, especially if you’re going to address the tweet to the coaching staff.
Here the Horned Frogs were, nonetheless, Saturday, first down and nine yards away from seizing the lead or, at the least, tying the game with less than 90 seconds to play. And Anderson was about to tote the football for the 20th time, a season high.
The junior running back they call “Jet” darted through a brief hole and was about to cut left when he was abruptly confronted with the left buttock of his pulling tackle, Austin Myers. The ball was knocked free and immediately covered by Kansas defenders.
OMG. A butt fumble!, they proclaimed it on Twitter, a cruel place.
The Frogs never got another snap, a concluding footnote in itself, and Anderson’s otherwise fine, 95-yard day went for naught.
Coach Gary Patterson has a saying, one he’s used frequently, especially over the last couple of seasons. It’s a line from Luke’s gospel or a John F. Kennedy speech, depending upon whom you choose as the source:
“For those to whom much is given, much is required.”
Patterson didn’t use the line Saturday afternoon. Instead, somebody in the TCU locker room made certain that Darius Anderson was one of the two Frogs made available to reporters after the game.
It was another of those season’s lessons.
Something like, “To whom the football is given, holding onto it at the 7-yard line is required,” with apologies to St. Luke.
To his notable credit, Anderson handled the postgame media questioning well, though you could tell he was hurting inside and might rather be someplace else, like taking an Advanced Calculus exam or something.
“I saw the hole was open — just a mistake I made,” he said. “I can’t get it back now. Just hope to learn from it.
“Hurts, but we’ll be back.”
Anderson confirmed that, yes, his arm did hit his teammate’s back side.
“Yeah, I hit the O-lineman,” he said, “but that’s still on me. That has nothing to do with me letting the ball go.”
Fumbles happen. But both players and coaches always claim that they are mistakes of concentration, a momentary lapse, but a mistake nonetheless.
When asked what he told Anderson, Patterson answered directly, “Don’t fumble. Same thing you tell Mike Collins … don’t throw to the guy.
“I’m not going to dwell on it,” Patterson added. “Everybody made a lot of mistakes. We had a freshman free safety not tackle a guy in the open field. We had a sophomore linebacker/safety didn’t tackle in the open field. You’ve got to make plays. And we turned the running back loose twice on pass plays coming across the formation.”
For the sake of background, it’s worth noting that on at least two occasions this season, the head coach has passively alluded to comments that had been made about Anderson’s number of carries. Amidst the turmoil of last week, however, Patterson hadn’t said anything about the recent charge of “antics” and needed “answers.”
If he’s smart, he’ll let it pass. He made his response Saturday by sending Anderson to the interview room to face the music. A life’s lesson.
It’s about accountability, a fading trait in this 2018 TCU football season.
Without prompting at the end of his postgame press conference, Patterson said, “Listen, gentlemen, we’ve been here before. I said before the season we were young. We’ve had injuries. Again, I’m not going to make excuses. You can write what you want.
“We’re 3-5. We might be 3-9 before it’s done. But the bottom line is we’re going to keep fighting. We’re going to keep getting better, so we can move forward next year, one way or the other, unless they don’t keep us.
“But the bottom line to it is you’ve got to keep people healthy, people have got to make plays and people have got to grow up. If we’ll do that then we’ll have a chance.”
It’s the “growing up” part that Patterson has mentioned more and more. Injuries have forced the Frogs to play without key on-field leaders, and young players have not taken ownership of the situation they’ve found themselves in.
Unbridled youth can cause problems. Just look at the Kansas students after the game, facing off with security police in front of the goal posts and chanting, “Tear it down! Tear it down!”
Nothing serious, just funny.
It was just another chapter in a season gone dreadfully sour.
But that’s what this journey has become for the Horned Frogs, a team that turned heads in September against Ohio State, but found itself hanging its own heads after losing amid the autumn leaves of Kansas.
If they don’t want to finish 3-9, indeed, much will be required.
