In a series I’m doing at footballstudyhall.com I broke down the chess games between Patterson and the Buckeyes that took place early in 2018. Going in I figured that Dwayne Haskins and the passing game would be too much for the Frogs, and he definitely did some real damage throwing it around but TCU had it all well enough accounted for had their own offense and special teams not given the game away.
Some things I took from this game in terms of the prospective 2019 TCU Horned Frogs:
-Innis Gaines is a true stud, it’s possible that he’ll be their best strong safety yet. He gets the defense and he moves like lightning when he commits to something.
-Noah Daniels flashed in that game as well. The Frogs figure to have at least three CBs in 2019 that can play in the Big 12 without getting picked apart, which is perhaps as many as anyone.
-TCU’s read coverage is exploitable with runs to the boundary. @The_Coach_A pointed out to me that Florida State was running it against Virginia Tech last year and got gashed with iso to the boundary because they’d run out of defenders at the point of attack with their support weighted to the field where the strong safety is. Ohio State did some work as well hitting the boundary, which I detail in the article.
The solution to that is just mixing in some coverages where the weak safety is the primary box support, which the Frogs do utilize.
-Last year Patterson had @SMU, Ohio State, and then @Texas in back-to-back-to-back weeks. Then he had Iowa State, Tech, and then Lincoln Riley and Oklahoma after the Sooners had a bye week to process their RRS defeat, shore up their defense, and give TCU’s defense extra attention. The Frogs got beat up badly with injuries in that stretch and Patterson’s powers of scouting and concentration were a little divided.
In 2019 the Frogs have an easier slate. Their non-conference includes SMU at home and on the road against Purdue, Texas has to come to Fort Worth, the Texas Tech and West Virginia games sandwiching Oklahoma are much less threatening, and Lincoln Riley doesn’t get a bye week before he faces them.
I’m willing to bet that priority one for Patterson in 2019 is dealing a loss to Riley and Oklahoma. Gare is 0-5 against Lincoln Riley since he came to Norman and the last three defeats have all been by substantial margins. It’s hard to imagine Patterson getting more excited for anything other than finally dealing out some payback in that game.
The OU game also comes late in the schedule. Time enough for OU’s offensive line to gel, for Hurts to settle in and improve in the system, but also for Patterson to get his QB situation settled and to get plenty of tape on what OU is doing.
My guess is that barring catastrophic injury to one side or the other that TCU will carry a major edge into that one because Patterson will put a lot into it.
Yeah he was pretty pissed last year that OU had the bye week before TCU. He mentioned it in the postgame press conference and said something about OU doing some things early that they had never ever done.
Yeah I watched that, it left a strong impression with me that he’ll be out for blood next year.
For instance, the matchups didn’t really favor Oklahoma State vs Texas last year but they were playing at home off a bye week in a must win game. The cowboys hit them with all kinds of game planning early and tho texas nearly came back they got in too big a hole early on.
Funny story about Innis Gaines. Travon Blanchard’s cousin, James Blanchard, became a twitter-recruiting guru and was begging Baylor’s staff to offer Gaines. But Blanchard is from “the 409,” so whenever he is begging for the staff to offer someone, like Gaines, who is also from the 409, you have to take it with a grain of salt. Baylor never offered and it has been much to their loss.
The cap to this story is that Blanchard is now employed by Matt Rhule as a recruiting analyst. He also found Xavien Howard when he was a 0* QB in Houston, now pro bowl NFL CB.
Nice, that’s pretty interesting.
Lotta athletes in the golden triangle and a lot of them seem to go under the radar for whatever reason.