Patterson playing up TCU's underdog role

FORT WORTH That once-familiar feeling has returned to Fort Worth, at least for a week. It may be hard for many fans to remember, but before the rise of TCU's 2010 senior class beginning in 2008, the Frogs were not the favorites in every game they played. Quarterback Andy Dalton and the rest of an extremely young TCU team took their lumps during the 2007 season. Dalton started the second game of his career at Darrell K. Royal Stadium in Austin, and took a lead into halftime. That team also lost road games to Air Force and Wyoming. It was a season of growth for the Frogs, but they emerged as a group with a perpetual chip on its shoulder and its back to the wall. As head coach Gary Patterson said last week, it's under those conditions that the Frogs play their best. The 2011 Horned Frog squad is even younger than the 2007 version. Patterson set a record for most true freshmen played in a season during this season's first month. At times, TCU plays two true freshmen (Chucky Hunter and Jon Lewis) in the middle of its defensive line and puts as many as three true freshman receivers (Brandon Carter, Cam White and David Porter) on the field. Injuries and attrition have made the team even younger than it expected to be back in August. But Dalton and that group of Frogs, which set a school record for wins by a class, also set a new standard for TCU football. The youngest team in college football has not been an underdog in any game this season. Yes, this year's team has dropped two games. However, both games literally went down to the wire, and the Frogs are a missed field goal against Baylor and a fumbled kickoff against SMU away from being undefeated once again. That changes this week when the Frogs travel to Boise for a game that was originally scheduled to be played in Fort Worth. The Broncos have not lost a game in their home stadium since the 2005 MPC Computers Bowl against Boston College. Head coach Chris Petersen has remains undefeated in Bronco Stadium since he became head coach during the 2005 season. Patterson made sure his team knew that Boise not only wants to win this game, they need to run up the score to look good for BCS purposes. "They are a 'roll up your sleeve, come after your tail' type of football team. They don't stop, on both sides of the football," Patterson said. "And just so you understand, they need to make a statement in this ballgame. They're not going to just try to beat us. They need to beat us bad. "For us, we're going to win. But we need to understand, you're probably going to see Kellen Moore for the last five seconds of the ballgame, and you're going to see the number one defense for the whole ballgame. "So we need to get ready to get his and throw punches right back. Not literally," Patterson joked, referring to the infamous punch thrown by Oregon's LaGarette Blount that connected with Boise linebacker Byron Hout in 2009. This year's Boise team features a senior quarterback in Kellen Moore who broke Colt McCoy's NCAA all-timerecord for wins last week against UNLV. In four years, Moore has started for 46 Bronco victories, and he has an opportunity for 51 wins by the time his college career ends. "He just does a terrific job. I love the way he handles himself on and off the field," Patterson said of Moore. "I think in the two times we've played him, I fooled him on one play. One. Out of 120 plays or whatever it is. He just doesn't get fooled. He knows where the ball is supposed to go and how he's supposed to do it. He's just like having a coach on the field. He's always been that way: extremely intelligent, extremely talented, extremely accurate . . . he's like Andy Dalton." Currently, the Frogs are slated as 15-point underdogs by Vegas oddsmakers. It's an entirely unfamiliar spot for this particular TCU team. However, it's a place where Patterson feels comfortable, and a spot in which he has excelled in the past. "Both of us want to stay low on the surface, because it makes our jobs easier," Patterson said of himself and Petersen. "But really, his job changed when he won the Fiesta Bowl and my job changed when I won the Rose Bowl. It's just different. And it's a good thing. "You can still keep integrity, you can still keep hard-working kids, you can still keep all the values in your program. But the bottom line to it is, as you keep longevity as a coach and you keep moving forward, you need those things to happen." If these Frogs don't get a sense of motivation from finally being predicted to lose, the older players on the team will surely be reminded of the last time TCU squared off against Boise. It was another rung on the ladder for TCU's climb to glory, and it might have been the toughest to get past. Boise State stood toe-to-toe with the Frogs during the 2010 Fiesta Bowl, battling to a 10-10 tie in the fourth quarter. TCU believed it was getting the ball back for a potential game-winning score with just under 10 minutes left in the game, but Boise dug into its back of tricks with a fake punt on its own 33-yard line. The Broncos converted on the fake, drove for a touchdown and won the game 17-10. In the aftermath, the Frogs were left to deal with their lone loss of the season on the biggest stage. Receiver Josh Boyce, who was redshirting during the season, said it was the most painful locker room atmosphere he'd ever experienced. Cornerback Greg McCoy, a sophomore at the time, said he remembers the pain on the faces of the seniors. "The tears in the seniors' eyes," McCoy said when asked what he remembered from after the Fiesta Bowl. "I wouldn't say disappointed, but with me being a younger guy, you want to give the seniors the best senior year possible. For that game to be so big for us, and to see those guys break down these strong guys; a Jerry Hughes, a Daryl Washington in tears because we lost, it was hard." "It was our first time going to a BCS game. That was the biggest moment of our lives," said senior guard Kyle Dooley. "And then a lot of people were really down. But then you had some people who said, 'Let's get back here again next year. This is where we want to be.' And that's kind of where we built off that." TCU will likely go back to being a huge favorite in each of its final two games this season against Colorado State and UNLV, regardless of the outcome this Saturday. If there's an advantage to playing as a decided underdog, though, Patterson will find it. He worked tirelessly to bring the program to this point, and even though he admits he has made his own job more difficult by raising expectations, he also knows that this week's contest is much closer to what he'll see every week in the Big 12 next year. "It's the same thing with going into the Big 12. Did my job get harder? Yes," Patterson said of playing the Broncos in Boise. "But guess what? Why would you want it any different?" While Patterson manages expectations, he also continues to place a chip on his players' shoulders and force their backs against the wall. It's worked for him thus far, to say the least.