Patterson Holds Weekly Presser
11/25/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
FORT WORTH, Texas -- TCU football coach Gary Patterson held his weekly news conference on Tuesday in the Four Sevens Team Room.
The fifth-ranked Horned Frogs (9-1, 6-1) are at Texas (6-5, 5-3) on Thursday at 6:30 p.m.
Included below are excerpts from Patterson's meeting with the media.
Opening Statement ...
"Week 11. University of Texas. Thanksgiving Day. Here we go."
On if the College Football Playoff changes his approach on anything ...
"I don't approach it any differently. Every week, one of the things you have to do with your players is get them prepared. You never fear your opponent, but you have to respect them. It doesn't matter who you play. We've had enough runs of being undefeated or close to it that we know if we don't keep doing things we'll get ourselves in a lot of trouble.
"I go back to 2005, winning at Oklahoma and then getting beat at SMU. We've been through enough seasons to know about that and that really goes with the college playoffs. People have wondered why I've taken a hands-off approach to it. It's for a simple reason. If you look at the history of TCU and how we've been on the outside looking in when we were in the Mountain West and every other conference, it's what we had to do. We just had to take care of our own business. We didn't have any control over going to the Fiesta Bowl or the Rose Bowl. Everything had to line up exactly right for us to get where we needed to be. There's a committee that will decide everything, and there's not much we can do about it. All we can do is win and go about our business.
"We've been banged up, and we're going to get some people healthy. By the time we play a bowl game, we'll be back to full strength. We'll be the team we were in the middle of the season."
On facing Texas ...
"They've been playing better and have played well on defense all year. They're really playing with a lot more confidence. They've always had skill players. They stand between us and getting a chance to be 10-1. That's what we're trying to get accomplished."
On where Texas has improved this season ...
"Confidence level, quarterback play and running the football. They have a couple of really good backs and the emergence of a couple of wide receivers. It also starts with quarterback play. I go back to watching the BYU game. He (Tyrone Swoopes) is doing a good job of managing the game, doing what they ask him to do and how they do it. He's a big body, so he's hard to bring down. He can run with the football and do things. As they gained confidence in him, they opened the offense up a lot more than what they did earlier in the season."
On injuries ...
"We'll have a couple guys back. Deante' Gray will be back and Kolby Listenbee is healthier. We don't know yet if B.J. Catalon will be with us or not. Everybody is healthier. The defensive line is healthier. We probably played six or eight of them at 80 or 90 percent at the Kansas State and Kansas games. They got pretty banged up during the West Virginia game, but everybody is banged up. We're a lot healthier than we were three weeks ago."
On if he worries about the final ranking ...
"You just have to let the cards fall. We have to control what we can control and go from there. You can't take away the season that Trevone Boykin has had or the way we've improved on offense. There are just a lot of positives out of it. My job is to make sure they haven't forgotten that. Sometimes, they forget we're 9-1. I'm talking about what's important. As a football team, let's take care of what we need to take care of and let them make that decision. Let's not make the decision for them. If we can win the next two and get to 11-1, they have to make that decision. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to play well enough to win by one point, get where we need to be and do what we need to do."
