Can TCU’s magical season continue again Texas and Gary Patterson? | College Football Enquirer
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger discuss undefeated TCU’s huge matchup with Texas on Saturday, and debate if TCU has what it takes to continue its unbeaten streak to 10 games.
Video Transcript
DAN WETZEL: All right. Let's talk about this TCU Texas game coming up. Game is in Austin. Everything at stake for the Horned Frogs. They are going to be at least a touchdown. They are 7 point underdog right now. We'll see what they end up. I'm not going to say it's the biggest game in the history of the program because they won the Rose Bowl. They won games that got them into the Big 12. Right. So I'm not going to say that because they beat Texas. They still just got to keep going. They got Baylor the week after.
But if you're Sonny Dykes and you're trying to take TCU to the next level, there's nothing better than beating Texas. Everybody is watching in the state of Texas, which is where I just looked at their recruiting class. They have 20 kids committed, 17 from Texas, as you'd expect. Nothing is that seal of approval more than Texas.
And then the intriguing part is the guy who's going to try to shut you down defensively is Gary Patterson, who is more responsible for what TCU is today than any person in TCU history. He's the one that got you to the level where you could get into the Big 12. And one of his famous things was making the Texas game the priority for Texas Christian. Fascinating, you then fire the guy after 21 years of basically the most important person in the history of the program. But now, this guy can ruin what is your most important season, at least since that Rose Bowl.
PAT FORDE: And the guy that Patterson worked with arm in arm to expand the stadium, and help make them marketable on a bigger scale, is Chris Del Conte, who's now the athletic director at Texas. Yeah, the Gary Patterson part of this is just fascinating because they did push him out. And he didn't want to go. And it was ugly last year. It was ugly. I mean, basically, Patterson said if you want me gone at the end of the year, I'm leaving now. Forget it. We're not having some nice warm fuzzy send off. I'm out.
And then he ends up at Texas. And I was joking in the off season, without really joking, that his unofficial title is analyst in charge of TCU, that they got so many people there that they can just say, take 10 months and get us ready for TCU. It'll be a labor of love for Gary to beat his former team. It's a fascinating, fascinating game. And yeah, Dan. To your point, how these seasons go, and for the schools that haven't experienced it in a while, every game is the game of the year.
And you win it. And then the next game is bigger. And the next game is bigger. And the next game is bigger. And sometimes, eventually, it wears you down. But so far, no sign of that from TCU.
ROSS WELLENGER: Yeah, these-- man, the TCU people, they just-- they really hate Texas. I picked up on that pretty quickly when I was there this past spring. It's like-- it's a real hate. I remember the AD there, Jeremiah Donati, he mentioned he's really close with Chris Del Conte, the former AD at TCU kind of came up behind him.
And during one-- I think maybe it was last year's Texas TCU game, it was at TCU, and Del Conte was in the visiting AD suite. And Donati went to go visit him and just say hello. And at the door of the visiting AD suite was two police officers guarding the door because Del Conte was not playing around with the threats and things that he received from TCU people for one while leaving several years ago for Texas. And two, leaving the Big 12 for the SEC.
So there's just-- there's a lot of-- there's a lot of hate here and a lot of interesting storylines.
DAN WETZEL: It goes back to the Southwest Conference, right?
PAT FORDE: Oh yeah.
ROSS WELLENGER: Yeah. Right. Right.
DAN WETZEL: Southwest Conference breaks up and Texas has enormous pull.
ROSS WELLENGER: That's right.
DAN WETZEL: And who do they put in the Big 12?
ROSS WELLENGER: Right.
DAN WETZEL: They take Texas Tech. And there was this whole--
ROSS WELLENGER: And they believe, I think TCU people believe that Texas and others in the state tried to keep them out of the Big 12 too. So there's a lot of-- yeah, there's a lot of hate here and a lot of storylines. It's pretty juicy.
DAN WETZEL: I think there's-- I'm sure there is many, many kids that are sitting there saying, I want to go to Texas or Texas Christian. There's that too, just the regular students. There is-- it's all there.
PAT FORDE: Yeah.
DAN WETZEL: It's all there.