The NCAA – no wagering, please – announced last week that it will not mandate standard injury reports during the upcoming college football season.
TCU head coach Gary Patterson, as expected, is all in favor of that decision.
“I’m the Belichick way,” Patterson assured. “Say nothing . . , right?”
It figures, of course, that Patriots coach Bill Belichick would be one of Patterson’s cherished role models. Belichick’s end-around with the NFL injury report rules is the stuff of legend.
Belichick once listed quarterback Tom Brady on New England’s required injury report each week for three consecutive years, presumably because of a shoulder he had separated years before. Brady managed to play in 127 straight games.
Patterson similarly turns evasive at most media queries about player injuries. Over the years, I’ve heard Gary cite HIPAA laws, doctors’ office hours and athletes’ homework load to keep from disclosing the extent of a player’s slight limp.
Coaches will be coaches. Russian hackers aren’t going to crack a football coach’s cone of silence.
Yet, when Patterson does meet with the local media, as he did following Saturday’s scrimmage, we unfailingly feel obligated to plumb the head coach for information.
Like, the day’s ultimate shot in the dark: Who’s going to be the starting quarterback in 2019?
“Oh, I don’t know,” Patterson said.
The teaching portion of preseason workouts is over, he did say, and now comes the reconciling of the depth chart.
But he did acknowledge that junior quarterback Mike Collins was in a protective boot and unable to participate Saturday. Since Collins knows the offense, Patterson didn’t see a problem, as long as Collins returns to practice this week.
Not that Collins is the frontrunner to start. Signs continue to point to grad transfer Alex Delton being the eventual choice.
“You can tell Delton’s played a lot of football,” Patterson said again Saturday.
“He’s been there a long time. You’ve got a guy who was voted captain at Kansas State — voted captain. His teammates, even at media days, they still talked about him. There’s a guy who left the program, and you’d think maybe somebody had something bad to say. But nobody had anything bad to say about him. And he’s been unbelievable here.”
Patterson said he and the Horned Frogs coaches will be looking for the same criteria in the No. 1 quarterback.
“Same thing as always,” Patterson said. “Move the football, who can we win with, and who doesn’t throw an interception.
“Really, I’ve been happy with all the quarterbacks, with the way they’ve acted, competed and done things. All of them.”
The inevitable question about Justin Rogers and his comeback from a serious knee injury was met with a Belichick-ian response from the head coach.
Rogers, Patterson made sure to mention, is “in that boat” as one of the ones competing for the starting QB job.
“He’s still in the process of seeing the rush a little bit,” Gary added, somewhat vaguely.
“If he moves himself up, he plays, and we’ll get ready to go.”
Besides Collins, Patterson mentioned others who, for various reasons, have had to miss a preseason workout or two. Nothing seems to be season-threatening, except the injury to sophomore cornerback Noah Daniels, who will miss the season.
His loss could impact the entire secondary.
“Yeah, because Julius [Lewis] could have been a guy smart enough to play some safety,” Patterson said.
The backup secondary list, he said, now consists of “nine redshirt freshmen or true freshmen, a senior and a junior.”
The Frogs could move senior safety Keenan Reed back to cornerback. Patterson has been impressed with another safety, sophomore La’Kendrick Van Zandt.
“He’s been great,” the coach said. “He’s played better than he ever has since he’s been here.”
The performance of the wide receivers, meanwhile, has been one of the early camp highlights.
As Patterson noted, “[Jalen] Reagor ran by us three times yesterday. He and TreVontae Hights. Mikel Barkley’s had a good camp. Taye Barber’s had a good camp. Really, all the receivers.”
Patterson added, “We’re throwing the deep ball probably better than we have since 2014, and we can do it because of the speed factor.”
Ears perked when Patterson said that after Saturday’s practice. The 2014 season was a special one for the Frogs, going 12-1, finishing No. 3 in the country and obliterating Ole Miss in the Peach Bowl.
A return of the wide-open offense, Patterson was asked?
“I’m not going to elaborate because I ain’t gonna tell anybody else what we’re doing,” Patterson responded.
A real Belichick answer, in other words.
The injury report requirement has been a thorny issue for college athletics since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that states have the option of legalizing sports betting. A Texas House resolution, introduced by Democratic Rep. Eddie Lucio III of Brownsville, would have added a referendum on sports gambling to the November ballot, but it wasn’t acted upon.
At least 26 other states, however, have either authorized sports betting or filed bills to allow it.
Widespread wagering would almost mandate that the NCAA impose some sort of standard injury reporting. Otherwise, programs could be exposed to gamblers seeking information in non-standard ways.
“The membership has significant concerns about the purpose, parameters, enforcement and effectiveness of a player availability reporting model,” said Michael Drake of Ohio State, the chairman of the NCAA Board of Governors.
All well and good, Gary Patterson’s reaction confirmed. He likes the Bill Belichick approach to discussing things such as injuries and home field advantages.
It was Belichick who once answered a question about an upcoming game at Miami thusly:
“I don’t know. Look — it is what it is out there. So whatever it is, it is.”
Bingo — a cover blurb for Patterson’s autobiography.