As if propelled by some robust inner force, the TCU football Frogs have hit the practice ground at full sprint.
Or so says their head coach.
“Everybody has been back as if they’re on a mission,” said Gary Patterson, beginning what seems to be his 39th or 40th season.
“They’ve shown the chemistry, the work ethic. And this freshman class has been one of the best, as far as how they’ve come in.
“Time will tell how that turns out, but . . . .”
It beats the alternative, Patterson wanted to say. It beats the way his 2018 squad answered the starting gun – with injuries, vainly searching for leadership and soon to endure a mighty fall after a gallant loss to Ohio State.
Yet, down to its fourth-string quarterback and Page Three or so of its depth chart, that TCU team ended up winning seven contests and, in the end, a bowl game for the ages.
And therein came the inner force, the coach thinks.
“Our kids are really glad to get to this point after everything they went through a year ago,” Patterson said. “The enthusiasm — all the things are a real positive with this team, because of all they were able to get done at the end of year after everything they had faced, on and off the field.”
I’m going to call it the Cheez-It Bowl Effect (copyright pending, T-shirts maybe to come).
First, you lose one of your best defensive players. Then your most experienced general in the secondary gets hurt. Then you lose on national TV to the Buckeyes and four of the next five, including an unexplainable defeat at Kansas.
But somehow, late one night on a baseball field in Arizona, one day after Christmas, you’re hoisting a bowl trophy after a 10-7 overtime triumph over California, and social media is calling the nine-interception affair an instant classic.
The Cheez-It Bowl, and now has come its surprisingly positive effect.
“They could have folded at 3-5,” Patterson said. “We had 24 season-ending injuries, 40 guys that missed over four ballgames, and yet you won seven ballgames.
“It says a lot about our staff, a lot about our kids.”
Longtime Patterson-watchers, me among them, will tell you it was one of his best coaching jobs. He and his coaches were faced with constantly searching for the proverbial Next Man Up, the proper patched-up defense or someone to take the center snap on offense.
Players did step up. Wide-eyed freshmen, buckled by the heat in August, were hardened football warriors by the end of November.
History tells us that Patterson’s teams are at their best when they’re rebounding from an adverse season. The roots of the Rose Bowl-winning Frogs in 2010 came from an 8-5 finish three years before. A 4-8 season in 2013 was followed by a 13-1 performance and a Peach Bowl rout of Ole Miss.
Listening to Patterson, you get the feeling that he likes the foxhole his 2019 team has had to fight its way out of.
“Usually we’ve followed average years with unbelievable years,” Patterson said the other day. “My point is, going into it, I already feel a lot better, mind-wise, which is very important.
“And if we can stay healthy and get a couple of guys to step up at a couple of positions, then I think we’re going to have a chance.”
A chance for . . . what, exactly?
Patterson didn’t say. Goals, after all, sometimes have to be adjusted.
But a solid program stands on its foundation.
“We’re not small, little TCU,” Patterson said. “We’re the girl next door that had pigtails that you never paid attention to. But she grew up, and you look out the window one day and she’s beautiful and going to the prom with somebody else.
“That’s TCU. We’ve grown up.”