Patterson Holds Weekly Presser
10/20/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 20, 2009
FORT WORTH, Texas -- TCU football coach Gary Patterson held his weekly news conference Tuesday in the Four Sevens Team Room inside the Dutch Meyer Athletic Complex and Abe Martin Academic Enhancement Center.
The No. 7 Horned Frogs will be at No. 16 BYU Saturday.
Included below are excerpts from Patterson's comments to the media.
Opening statement ...
"It's week seven. We talked about working up to this point at the beginning of the year, using the first seven games as a quadrant leading up to BYU and we are here. I really don't think you have to say too much about them. They beat Oklahoma and are ranked in the top 16. We play them at their place. They have a great quarterback, great wide receivers, great fullback, great tailback, great tight end and very good players on defense. They are the same BYU team, always attacking."
On preparing his team for this week ...
"If you get ready for the games you are supposed to win, the big games will take care of themselves. I know that is coach speak, but it holds pretty true. You have to worry about getting your guys too sky high. What then happens, you make mistakes because you think you have to do more than you need to. The good teams take care of business."
On BYU's program ...
"We have played them four times since joining the league and are 2-2 against them. Every game has been physical. We understand the talent level they have."
On getting ready to play a tough road game ...
"Every year is different. Having played at Clemson helps, which is one of the reasons we scheduled the game. It gave us a chance to go into a place like Death Valley, play an athletic team like Clemson and understand what you have to do to win. Going to Virginia and Air Force is very similar to playing BYU because of the kinds of possible conditions we could see."
On being too busy to think about the polls ...
"Your kids go to school and do the things they do, but it's not that hard for today being Tuesday to all of a sudden be Friday. For me, you're going to bed at 1 a.m. and getting back up at 6 a.m. You're writing scripts and barely getting them done before you come to the media luncheon. As soon as you're out of here, you're writing the practice schedule for tomorrow. You're thinking about what you are going to do during a walk through, while kids are watching film. You then go out to practice.
"A lot of people have more time to think about this kind of stuff than a football team does. For us, we will practice and get ready with everything that we have to do here, arrive Friday night, get up in the morning, have breakfast, go through pre-game at around 2 p.m. and then play a football game. It's a lot more consuming, what you do from a week-to-week basis, especially for us since we don't have an off week. If we had an off week, we might have more time to think about numbers, BCS standings and all of those other things."
On being in the BCS discussion ...
"You want to be at this point. That's what we work for. If you look at our pyramid of goals, the BCS championship is not the next level. It's still about going after a Mountain West Conference championship. This game is more about the conference than it is BCS. Last year, we ended up seventh in the nation and lost to Oklahoma and Utah. It's about being the best team you can be. That is all you can control."
On putting too much emphasis on one game ...
"If you put so much into this game and build it to be all about the BCS, and it doesn't turn out the way you want to, what have you got after that? You still have five games to play. You still have a chance, with one loss, to tie for a conference championship or even win it. There is still a lot of football left. It's going to be a hard-fought game. It's on the road. They haven't lost at home in the conference since 2005.
"I saw an article that said I use Utah as an example all of the time, and that's the only team I can think about. It's not because of revenge. It's been a learning experience. In the 27 years that I have been an assistant or head coach, I've never been in a tougher locker room than the one I was in that night - where kids wanted something so badly that there wasn't a dry eye in the whole place. But they bounced back two weeks later to beat Air Force and to go on and beat Boise State in a bowl game. As the saying goes, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger."
