NORMAN, Okla. — TCU coach Gary Patterson is a veteran of 18 college football campaigns. His track record is proven, his methods stand the test of time and his concepts are successful.
So do the Horned Frogs look like the Horned Frogs on Saturday when they rematch with No. 2 Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game? Or does Patterson scrap his usual game plan — none of which worked three weeks ago in a 38-20 loss to the Sooners in Norman — and come to AT&T Stadium with an entirely new identity?
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“I’m expecting to see a whole new defense,” Oklahoma offensive tackle Orlando Brown said Monday. “They’ll probably have a bunch of different blitzes and things like that in for us. Obviously, everyone’s going to stick to their bread and butter. But man, it’s going to be a lot of different things that we haven’t seen before.”
The Sooners (11-1, 8-1 Big 12) routed TCU (10-2, 7-2) back on Nov. 11, and they clash again in the reboot of the league’s title game. The Big 12’s last championship game — won in dramatic fashion by Oklahoma over Nebraska — was played in the same stadium in 2010. A couple rounds of conference realignment, including contraction of four members in the Big 12 and the addition of West Virginia and TCU, left the league with just 10 members and no title game.
But the Big 12 last summer received a waiver to play its championship without the usual 12-14 members, and so guaranteed a rematch of its top two teams. That means an annual conundrum like what TCU faces this week: Stick with what you do, or fix what didn’t work last time.
In truth, it likely will be a combination of both.
“It’s like any game,” Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley said. “Everybody’s got their base things, everybody’s got their wrinkles, everybody will have to make adjustments. That happened in the first game. That happens in every college football game. I’m sure this one won’t be any different."
TCU and Patterson take pride in an effective 4-2-5 defensive alignment. Patterson said one reason it worked so well in beating high-powered Oklahoma State in Stillwater was the Horned Frogs operate with five defensive backs on every play, and so didn’t have to adjust to the Cowboys’ prolific passing game. It was a natural fit.
But that same defense had almost no answers for the Sooners, who raced to a 38-14 halftime lead. Against college football’s No. 1 rushing defense and No. 6 overall defense, the Sooners rushed for 200 yards (Rodney Anderson scored four total touchdowns) and passed for 333 (Baker Mayfield threw for three touchdowns).
“There’s always things you see on tape after playing somebody that you say, ‘Maybe we do that differently,’ ” Mayfield said. “I’m sure they’ll have, scheme-wise, some just minor changes here and there. You said it, they do what they do and they’ve been great at it for a long time. So they’re not going to have anything major, majorly change. We have to be ready to adjust on the fly and see how they come out and have the little changes like you said.”
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Oklahoma has stomped five consecutive Big 12 opponents — Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, TCU, Kansas and West Virginia, three of which were ranked, two of which were on the road — by an average score of 50-27.
Mayfield will almost certainly win the 83rd Heisman Trophy as the nation’s best player. This week he became the first player in major college history with 14,000 career yards passing and 1,000 career yards rushing. He set the FBS record for passer efficiency rating last year and will likely shatter that mark this season. And he’s second nationally in passing yards and touchdowns.
Anderson, who had 290 all-purpose yards in the previous game versus TCU and has scored nine touchdowns in his last three games, is closing in on 1,000 yards rushing, despite hardly playing at all in the first five games. And three Sooners receivers have more than 700 yards so far this season, while five have more than 300 yards.
Oklahoma also is on pace to challenge the FBS record for total yards in a season. The Sooners are sure to shatter the school record for yards per play (8.6; the old mark of 7.6 has stood since 1971).
So maybe it doesn’t matter what adjustments TCU makes defensively. Maybe trying to replicate the success Iowa State had in a 38-31 victory in Norman back on Oct. 7 — dropping eight defenders into coverage and making Mayfield be patient — will work. Maybe it won’t. Other teams have tried the same thing since then, and the OU offense has averaged 598 yards and 46 points per game.
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“We’ve seen, certainly, bits and pieces (of Iowa State’s drop-eight plan),” Riley said. “We’ve come a long way since then, too.”
In reality, the Horned Frogs’ best chance at an upset is for the TCU offense to match the Sooners, point for point. The Oklahoma defense this week ranks only 62nd overall and certainly can be had.
“They’re going to be very ready to play us. We get everybody’s best shot, but their best shot is pretty good,” Mayfield said. “It’s going to be a great challenge and so that’s the way we like it. We like playing in big games. I think we’re made for this stage.”
Said Riley, “(Nothing) that happened in that game carries over. This is a new game, it’ll be a different atmosphere, two teams that know each other well, and it should be a hell of a fight.”
Probably so. That’s why oddsmakers have installed Oklahoma as just a 7-point favorite. Don’t expect a blowout. In fact, don’t expect much of what happened three weeks ago to happen again.
“I think both staffs are going to come in here,” Brown said, “and probably redo their game plans completely.”