If you’re going to the TCU football game this Saturday, or any Saturday, pick up a program.
Look at the numbers inside.
You’ll see 322 and 328. Lots of 6-2s and 6-3s. Some 6-5s. There’ll be a couple of 6-7s and a 6-8, too.
They’re next to the names of the Horned Frogs, who open the season against Arkansas-Pine Bluff with perhaps the biggest and most athletic team in school history.
The word “perhaps” is used here because there’s no research that tells anyone definitively that this is the biggest and most athletic team in school history. But the scales and the eye test make a good case.
“Especially defensively,” said recruiting analyst Jeremy Clark, publisher of HornedFrogBlitz.com, who’s tracked TCU personnel closely for 14 years. “You combine their size and athleticism, this is by far the best I’ve seen in all my years covering them.”
On the offensive line Saturday, the Frogs will weigh in at 317, 311, 280, 322 and 328 left to right. Even the backups, who figure to play ample snaps if and when the game against the Lions of the FCS Southwestern Athletic Conference gets lopsided, go 314, 292, 307, 308 and 310.
They block for a 6-3, 240-pound back, Sewo Olonilua.
All three starting safeties are 6-2 and between 200 and 210. Jeff Gladney, the Big 12’s top draft prospect at cornerback, is 6-foot.
“We’re bigger, we’re longer in the secondary than we’ve been,” coach Gary Patterson said. “We’re a bigger-looking secondary group.”
Defensive ends Ochaun Mathis and Shameik Blackshear both stand 6-5 off the edge. “Size and presence,” Patterson said of the 272-pound Blackshear.
The interior tackles go 290 and 305.
With apologies to Marcus Cannon, the 350-pound left tackle on the Rose Bowl championship team, these are not Mountain West dimensions.
“You go out to a practice, and you can just tell,” Clark said. “The players that walk around on the practice field now, they just look different. No disrespect to the guys that were here during the Mountain West and Rose Bowl. There’s just a different look about them.”
Even the new punter goes 6-3, 220.
The growing size of a Horned Frog should be not be unexpected.
When TCU entered the Big 12 in 2013, coach Gary Patterson promised to acquire Power 5 conference size and depth. The recruiting cycles of 2016, ‘17 and ‘18 yielded the best three-year infusion of talent and mass in the Patterson era. The classes ranked in the top 30 in the nation, and all three were rated third-best in the Big 12 by 247Sports.
TCU has yet to ink a five-star recruit (non-qualifier Tyson Thompson aside).
But the four-stars are piling up.
The season’s opening depth chart listed three such recruits in the starting lineup (Jalen Reagor, Sewo Olonilua and Ross Blacklock) and seven as backups (Max Duggan, Karter Johnson, Te’Vailance Hunt, Anthony McKinney, Atanza Vongor, Wes Harris and Austin Meyers).
That’s not even counting quarterback Justin Rogers, the prize of the 2018 class.
For off-the-charts athleticism, just look at the linebackers. Garrett Wallow and La’Kendrick Van Zandt are both converted safeties. They don’t carry linebacker weight, but they pack linebacker punch and blast DB speed.
Patterson has not been shy about noting that Van Zandt flies in coverage with Reagor, the Frogs’ most electrifying offensive player.
“Stride for stride,” Patterson said. “And about 208 pounds, which is exactly what Travin Howard was. He’s taken a lot of reps, and it’s helped him grow up. There’s lots of carryover between our Mike linebacker and our strong safety when it comes to certain defenses that we play.”
The program has all the numbers. In size and talent, the Frogs enter their seventh season in the Big 12 as well-equipped as ever to make a run at their second league title. Just look at them.
“Top to bottom, it’s a big, fast defense,” Clark said. “The Big 12 helped them get some of these guys. Overall, it’s crazy the way they look now.”
