FRISCO — The video is out there somewhere on the internets.
A bunch of sweaty guys. TCU football guys. A practice facility brimming with testosterone and echoing with manly competition.
The football team calls it its annual Night of Champions, and the coaches would tell you that this is where “champions are made.”
And you would groan, because corny bromides like these are taped to the walls in every weightlifting salon. But I digress.
The video is out there. The Night of Champions is underway. The Horned Frogs are lifting Volkswagens and such.
And up steps linebacker Ty Summers, straining, struggling and ultimately smiling, as he rises to full height and squat-lifts 700 pounds.
Good heavens.
Looking at him now, already a college graduate and all, his neck muscles as thick as a honey-baked ham, it’s hard to imagine that Tyson “Ty” Summers once was all but ready to go to Rice University and play . . . quarterback.
At San Antonio Reagan, Summers was an all-district, left-handed, run-pass quarterback with an eye on going to the Houston brain factory and studying to be an orthopedic surgeon.
That’s where TCU coach Gary Patterson picked up the story at this week’s Big 12 Football Media Days.
“I had one more scholarship, and people told me he was a great kid, that he could communicate and that he ran a 10.9 100 meters,” Patterson recalled.
“But I needed another linebacker, and I figured, well, he’s a Rice-type kid academically, so if you could put a guy like that in your system, you might have a chance to make him into somebody.”
On Summers’ recruiting visit to Fort Worth, Patterson told him TCU had a scholarship for him, as long as he was willing to change positions.
Summers could do the math. A Power Five school with a recent Rose Bowl trophy in its showcase versus a football program that had been to four bowl games in 52 years.
He doesn’t look like a quarterback anymore. At 6-2 and 235 pounds, Summers has a classic NFL linebacker’s body.
And Patterson was right about the academics thing.
Summers mastered linebacking, a position he hadn’t played since seventh grade, and has logged time at defensive end. He can pulverize a running back or sprint with one on a pass route.
Having earned his degree, he’s working on a masters in TCU’s liberal arts program, which frees him for afternoon film study.
On Patterson’s team, if you don’t watch scouting video, you won’t be able to answer correctly – or quickly enough – when the head coach ambushes you with a question in the meeting room. The defense also gets a written test on the game plan before each game. The only acceptable score is 100.
Patterson sets the example.
“Let’s see,” Summers said, “we practice two hours a day and we have meetings, so I’d say he watches film about 8-10 hours a day.
“My buddy said he drove by coach’s house one time, and he literally saw him in his game room at 1 o’clock in the morning, watching film.
“It’s crazy.”
No. This is Patterson, for whom 1 a.m. is nothing. And this is partly why he and Summers are such a great fit.
Linebacker Travin Howard finished his college career last season with the most total tackles (345) in recorded TCU history. Howard, a seventh-round NFL draft choice, will report next week to the Los Angeles Rams camp.
And a week later – no offense to Travin – Summers and fellow current Frogs Jawuan Johnson, Montrel Wilson and Arico Evans – will slide right into the linebacker positions, and the page will be turned.
When he makes his 75th tackle this season, Summers will surpass Howard in the record book.
This is good value, one would think, for a kid who was ranked 2,448th in the nation in 2013 by the recruiting wizards at 247sports.com.
The Frogs lost six starters from the conference-leading 2017 defense. But no one dares to call it a rebuilding year for Patterson and his defense.
TCU has led the Big 12 in total defense for three of the past six seasons.
Patterson’s best teams have always been the ones where the defense has been dominating, defenses where he’s found the right guys for the right positions.
Defenses that proved to be faster, smarter and lately, yes, stronger when it counted against opposing offenses.
Ty Summers, recruit No. 2,448 in the class of 2013, could recognize the opportunity when TCU came calling.
“I didn’t really care about the recruiting rating as long as I still got a chance, which I did, ultimately,” Summers said.
“Because I knew that if I had a chance, I was going to do everything that I could to be successful.”
Lift 700 pounds, in other words, no problem.
That’s how champions are made, as the sign on the wall at TCU says.
