So there are two ways to look at this thing, this fabulously frustrating reintroduction of the team that could have won it all last season if given the chance.
First, TCU has a boatload of work to do.
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Second, because of a truly awful schedule — where have we heard that before? — we won’t see the Horned Frogs in a game that means anything in the eyes of the College Football Playoff committee until early October.
Unless, of course, that really was the Frogs of 2015 in a perplexingly too close 23-17 win over Minnesota.
Trevone Boykin, everyone’s Heisman Trophy favorite, missed throws all game and looked nothing like the poised precision of 2014. The offensive line struggled to open holes, the defensive line struggled to get pressure.
The Frogs didn’t create turnovers, didn’t wear out the Gophers with an up-tempo offense and couldn’t put away a team that — I don’t think this is too much hyperbole — couldn’t complete a pass of significance if the season depended on it. Like it eventually will.
Welcome to the top of the mountain, TCU.
After traveling for decades from conference to conference, the vagabond program struck it big last season with a brand new offense and a quarterback who used to play wide receiver and a big, fat rout of an SEC team in a bowl game to make 2015 the most anticipated season in program history.
Now we return to reality, months removed from the Frogs scoring 1,800 points on Ole Miss in the Peach Bowl and convincing everyone the College Football Playoff committee made a spectacular mistake. All critical eyes are on the program that for years was a fun BCS-buster in the WAC, C-USA and Mountain West conferences — and then in its first winning season in a big boy conference, lost the only regular season game that mattered (hello, 61-58).
So when your quarterback who set records last season plays more like a first-time starter on the road against a middling Big Ten team; when your defense that created so much havoc in 2014 gets consistently gashed in the run game; when your season opener included your overmatched opponent fumbling a touchdown in the end zone and dropping a sure pick six, that might be a red flag heading into this season of huge hope.
Look, the first week is always a crapshoot. Even though Boykin missed numerous throws, he also made a few terrific plays (see: the audible to a speed option for a touchdown) and has a group of elite and dynamic skill players around him. In other words, he’ll figure it out again.
This issue is this: how does TCU play week to week as the hunted? A year ago, the Frogs were a fun story of a team that changed offenses because what it did the first two years in the Big 12 wasn’t working — and it all came together with a magical run.
Those games were fun, exciting amusement park rides with zero pressure. These games, with every opponent knowing your schemes and understanding the enormity of playing you, become play-by-play grinders.
As he ran off the field, TCU coach Gary Patterson was asked about the surprising fight put up by Minnesota — a team TCU beat 30-7 last season.
“We screwed up a lot out there,” Patterson said. “We have to play better football. I can promise you that.”
Welcome to the top of the mountain, TCU.
Get ready to get everyone’s best shot.