To fully grasp the enormity of the chance taken by Gary Patterson, you have to look deep into the psyche of one of the game’s great coaches over the last two decades.
Patterson is a defense-first coach. He has proven over and over — from the WAC, to Conference USA, to the Mountain West to the Big 12 — that his philosophy of he who plays best defense wins has zero flaws.
The very last thing he would do is put his defense in a precarious situation that would make its all-critical job of stopping the other guy harder than it already is. Yet that’s exactly what he did this offseason, scrapping a conservative offense and hiring two Mike Leach disciples to run a pass-happy offense that, in the end, would put more pressure on his beloved defense.
When the offense is successful, it scores quickly and puts the defense back on the field. When the offense fails, it gives up the ball quickly and puts the defense back on the field.
See where this is headed?
“We knew there would be a transition period, and we knew it would go all the way into the season,” said Patterson, Sporting News' Coach of the Year. “You don’t change like we did and not have to learn on the fly a bit.”
That’s what happened in TCU’s only loss of the season at Baylor. Patterson’s young secondary couldn’t stop Baylor’s passing game, and his offense couldn’t run clock. And the next thing you know, Baylor’s improbable comeback from 21 points down with 10 minutes remaining eventually kept the Horned Frogs from the College Football Playoff.
But that can’t overshadow the coaching job of Patterson, whose team was playing as well or better than anyone in the nation by the end of the season. A year ago, there were questions about Patterson and TCU’s ability to adjust to the Big 12.
By the end of this season — after 12 games of Patterson’s offensive experiment — the only question remaining was how the CFP selection committee dropped TCU three spots to No. 6 on its final ranking after a 52-point victory over Iowa State in the season finale.
The offense did just fine, thank you. And the defense? Gave up 18.1 points per game over the final seven games of the season after giving up 61 to Baylor.
Now see where this is headed?