TCU Football is a Stack of Questions with (Almost) No Answers
The definitive (?) 2020 TCU football preview.
It’s probably very dumb to write this preview.
There is still a pandemic happening. The college football season has already been delayed — and for many teams, canceled altogether — due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The idea of asking unpaid athletes to risk exposure to a deadly disease — the possible long-terms effects of which we don’t understand— by traveling around the country to play a high-contact, high-exertion sport, without standardized testing and safety protocols, or a guarantee of compensation, or even a voice in the decision-making process, seems, in a word, gross. That’s before considering a majority of college football players are Black, and that COVID-19 disproportionately affects Black people and people of color in the U.S.
TCU specifically has already had a less than stellar record in its handling of COVID-19, from the way the administration has addressed faculty safety concerns, to its handling of budget shortfalls, to the immediate spike in cases when students returned to campus.
Then the football team and coaching staff suffered an outbreak so severe that they had to cancel their season opener against SMU on Sept. 11 because they were unable to meet Big 12 roster requirements. TCU has not disclosed which position or positions where it fell short of the guidelines.
The chances of the season lasting more than a few weeks before getting shut down look slimmer by the day.
So why bother writing this?
The short answer: it’s what I know. I love writing about college football, all its idiosyncrasies and contradictions and silliness. I love analyzing the depth charts and breaking down why a team does some things well and does other things poorly. During a time when the typical rhythms of life have been completely upended, doing something “normal” is nice, even if “normal” as we once knew it is probably never coming back.
Losing some or all of the season is going to suck. Writing about what might be and what could have been will, I hope, make it suck a little less. And then if, by some miracle, the season still happens, there will be a record of how wrong I was about everything regarding TCU football this year.
So let’s talk about TCU football. Let’s talk about the Frogs’ continued quest to field a competent offense. Let’s talk about the star power on defense. Let’s talk about the staff shake-up and the personnel losses and the exciting young players. And let’s talk about expectations for TCU in a pandemic-shortened, possibly quarterback-less season.
Offense: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss
After dismal performances from the TCU offense the past two seasons, Gary Patterson decided to make a change to his offensive staff. But instead of bringing in a new philosophy, he decided to return to an old one. He re-hired his co-offensive coordinator and play caller from 2014–2016, Doug Meacham. His official title is inside receivers/tight ends coach, though his responsibilities are expected to go beyond those of a typical position coach. It was a somewhat surprising move, since Meacham and TCU didn’t seem to part on great terms previously.
Following a disappointing 2016 campaign that saw the Frogs’ up-tempo style backfire and put their defense in some tough situations, the offensive staff went through a significant overhaul. Meacham left to become the offensive coordinator at Kansas, at which point Patterson handed Cumbie the play-calling duties and promoted Curtis Luper to co-offensive coordinator. The order of events leading to the shuffling was unclear. Did Patterson ask Meacham to take a more conservative approach with his play calling in order to complement his defensive approach, then offer Cumbie the job when Meacham refused? Or was he planning to change play callers regardless?
Either way, Meacham elected to coach elsewhere rather than take a demotion or change his offense. He took his unfiltered, high-speed Air Raid scheme to Lawrence, while Cumbie and Luper re-tooled the TCU offense to put more emphasis on the run game and time of possession in order to help keep Patterson’s defense fresh. The shift worked for the 2017 season thanks to the Frogs’ dominant defense, their depth at running back, and Kenny Hill’s efficiency as a passer. The defense routinely suffocated opponents, and the offense finished the year ranked No. 22 in SP+. However, over the past two years the Frogs have continued to strip away the tempo and passing concepts that once made them dangerous, and they have put that diluted offense in the hands of less experienced quarterbacks, first with Shawn Robinson and then with Max Duggan.
The results speak for themselves. When Meacham and Cumbie shared coordinator responsibilities, TCU ranked 17th, 15th and 38th in offensive SP+, a different stratosphere from the bottom half of the national rankings they occupied in 2018 (91st) and 2019 (67th).
Bringing Meacham back to be the primary play caller could be an admission on Patterson’s part that returning to a wide-open offensive style is TCU’s best chance to compete in the Big 12. Patterson also brought in his longtime friend and former Minnesota head coach Jerry Kill as special assistant to the head coach, with his primary role being to oversee the offense. The hope appears to be that with Kill managing the offensive staff, Patterson can take a less involved approach on that side of the ball and let the Air Raid disciples and their Air Raid personnel actually run the Air Raid. A novel concept! That will require returning to the offense’s defining qualities: Pace and Space.
Let’s start with Pace. The Frogs ranked ninth nationally in time of possession in 2019, holding the ball for an average of 33:01 of game time. That’s fine for teams that consistently turn lengthy possessions into touchdowns, such as Wisconsin and Utah. The Badgers led the nation in time of possession at 35:42 per game, but they also ranked No. 16 nationally in points per play. The Utes ranked fourth in time of possession (34:06), but they ranked No. 19 in the FBS in points per play.
The Frogs, however, ranked No. 68 in the country in points per play in 2019. So not only were they voluntarily limiting the number of opportunities they had to score, but they didn’t score with any consistency when they did have those opportunities.
Failing to utilize tempo also meant TCU was never wearing down opposing defenses by making them play more snaps. Snapping the ball quicker would have also forced opposing coaches to play simpler coverages, which in turn would have made for easier reads for the quarterbacks in the passing game. All those factors work together to make things easier on your offense. It’s not going fast just for the sake of going fast, but in the interest of making it easier to score touchdowns because you’re facing tired defenders playing a vanilla defense.
Then there’s Space. Meacham and Cumbie need to be allowed to bring back the full array of route combinations that once made their passing attack so effective by forcing defenders to make tackles in the open field.
The last two years, in an effort to protect Duggan and Robinson from throwing game-breaking interceptions, the Frogs have limited their passing concepts to mostly out routes, go routes, and other patterns that stay outside the hashes. While those routes keep the ball out of the middle of the field where it’s easier for defenders to pick off passes, refusing to throw to the middle of the field made the offense more predictable and easier to stop. It also limited the amount of space receivers have to get yards after the catch, neutralizing the advantage of all the speed and athleticism the Frogs have recruited at that position.
It’s not like TCU doesn’t have the ability utilize the middle of the field. When they were forced to revert to a more wide-open passing attack as they attempted to come back from deficits in a number of games last season, they were able to make some plays between the numbers.
None of this would mean TCU has to abandon the run game either. Part of what made the Frogs’ offense so deadly from 2014–2015 were the option wrinkles they kept from their old scheme, which added a dynamic new dimension to the traditional Air Raid. Using tempo to wear out defenders would likely mean the chance for more broken tackles in the run game, and by spacing the field with four-receiver sets, it is automatically easier to run the ball between the tackles.
Re-hiring Meacham probably wasn’t the most inspiring choice, especially since there are other coaches in college football pushing the boundaries of what the Air Raid can look like by incorporating packaged plays and different run concepts. Meacham, in contrast, skews more toward Mike Leach in how much he believes in the original, unaltered version of the offense. It’s also worth noting that he spent 2019 out of coaching was fired at Kansas, and the Jayhawks now look a lot better on offense under a different coordinator. However, if Meacham and Cumbie are allowed to run the offense the way they ran it in their early days at TCU, it has to be better than what the Frogs have put on the field the last two seasons.
Of course, they’ll have to do it with a new cast of players that doesn’t include generational talents like Trevone Boykin and Josh Doctson, who lifted the offense from 2014–2015. And they’ll have to do it with a backup quarterback for the foreseeable future.
Max Duggan is out indefinitely following a procedure to address a heart abnormality, which was discovered during the program’s COVID-19 screening protocols. The sophomore was expected to be the focal point of a revamped offense after flashes of potential last year, but now there is no timetable for his return. Former 4-star recruit Justin Rogers transferred to UNLV after spending two seasons sidelined by a drop foot condition. Mike Collins transferred to Rice for a chance at more playing time.
That leaves former walk-on and Georgia transfer Matthew Downing, who has thrown 10 passes in his collegiate career, as the starter. Stephon Brown, the top-ranked JUCO dual-threat quarterback in the 2020 recruiting class, is expected to back him up.
To Downing’s credit, he was productive playing 6A football in Georgia, the second-highest classification in the state. He led Alpharetta to two regional titles in three years. He finished his senior season with 2,569 passing yards and 24 touchdowns, though he only completed 58 percent of his passes.
Downing’s high school coach, Jacob Nichols, recently compared his playing style to that of Baker Mayfield and Johnny Manziel.
“He’s got the same type of game as those guys,” Nichols told the Star-Telegram’s Drew Davison. “He can extend plays and make plays with his legs when needed.”
No one is pretending Downing has the same talent as those two. But the Air Raid has a knack for making undersized, mobile passers like Downing look good. The offense is meant to make things easy on the quarterback with simple reads and open receivers. If Meacham and Cumbie can design a scheme that does those things, Downing might be able to move the Frogs downfield consistently.
Patterson has said the offense will have a package to get Brown on the field as well. The 6-foot-5, 230-pound quarterback is a skilled runner, so the Frogs will likely use him in short-yardage and red zone situations.
Whether Brown gets the chance to do more than that depends on whether he takes advantage of those opportunities. He has the best physical tools of any available TCU quarterback, and he racked up 24 total touchdowns (16 passing, 8 rushing) at Independence C.C. last season.
However, he completed just 56.5 percent of his passes. He’ll need to be more efficient in order to see the field on passing downs or eventually push Downing for the starting job.
Behind those two is a pack of other unknowns. Walk-on Grant Beucler has reportedly been working with the third-team. There are also 3-star freshmen Eli Williams and Wilson Long. Long was formerly committed to Princeton, and before that, he had been committed to Texas Tech while quarterback guru Kliff Kingsbury was head coach.
It’s hard to place blame for TCU’s current quarterback situation on any one person. The Frogs signed three blue-chip quarterbacks in a row, but Robinson simply didn’t deliver on the field, and Duggan and Rogers have been sidelined by medical issues outside anyone’s control. Collins moved on because he had every reason to believe his shot at being TCU’s starting quarterback was over thanks to Duggan. If one of those situations had played out differently, the Frogs would likely feel pretty comfortable with their depth at the position. Instead, they find themselves scrambling to find someone who can run the offense for the third year in a row.
Whoever takes most of the snaps at quarterback this season should have the benefit of a deep — if unproven—group of running backs.
Following the departures of Darius Anderson and Sewo Olonilua, Darwin Barlow is expected to be the lead back. Fans of Texas high school football will remember him from Newton’s back-to-back state championship teams in 2017–2018. He ran for 5,723 yards and 93 touchdowns in three seasons at Newton. He’s joined in the backfield by fellow small-school Texas legend Daimarqua Foster, who racked up 6,772 rushing yards and 100 rushing touchdowns in three years at Hirschi in Wichita Falls.
Neither of them have gotten very much hype this offseason though, thanks to the late addition of Zach Evans, TCU’s first-ever 5-star signee, who has already created plenty of headlines—both good and bad — in his career.
Evans was an absolute star at Houston (Texas) North Shore, running for 4,867 yards and 76 touchdowns in three years at the highest classification of Texas high school football. He was ranked as the No. 2 running back in the country and the top prospect in Texas in the 247Sports Composite for the Class of 2020.
He was also suspended from the team twice his senior year, including right before the 2019 state title game for violating a team policy by refusing to give up his cell phone. North Shore won without him. He had an, uh, eventful recruitment. No one could ever really get a read on where he planned to commit. He surprised people by signing a letter of intent with Georgia after long dalliances with Texas and Texas A&M, and then the Bulldogs released him from it. He continued to look at other schools well into the spring, and then the pandemic kept him from taking any more visits. The bigger programs that would have normally taken a 5-star back like him were either full at the position by that point, or they didn’t want to deal with the perceived drama. That allowed TCU to swoop in and take a chance on him.
If that risks pays off and Evans is as good as advertised on the field, he could push for serious playing time early and create big plays for an offense that desperately needs them. It goes against Meacham’s nature, but it’s probably in the Frogs’ best interest to purposefully feature the run game this season. Meacham’s Air Raid typically allows the defense to dictate whether it’s a run or pass play, choosing to check to one or the other depending on how many defenders line up in the box. But with the inexperience at quarterback, TCU would do well to dictate the terms instead, utilizing option concepts and maybe even introducing some of the power blocking schemes that made Oklahoma so effective on the ground last year. And make no mistake, Evans and Barlow could be viable options in the passing game too, provided the passing concepts actually allow them to get the ball in the open field.
Between Evans, Barlow, and Foster, the Frogs have a wealth of talent at running back, even if that talent is untested. It’s a similar story at receiver: plenty of potential, but not many proven playmakers.
One of the few proven playmakers is Taye Barber, TCU’s leading returning receiver from last season after Jalen Reagor was drafted in the first round by the Philadelphia Eagles. Barber was sidelined for three games due to injuries, but still outpaced all other receivers on the roster with 372 yards. He’s also demonstrated a penchant for clutch catches in key moments.
If he can stay healthy, he’ll likely be a key component in the offense given Meacham’s affinity for slot receivers. The same likely goes for Nebraska transfer J.D. Spielman, who joined the Frogs over the summer and has received a waiver from the NCAA to play immediately this season. He’s coming off three straight 800-yard seasons for the Cornhuskers and should be the Frogs’ most reliable pass catcher out of the slot this season.
Dylan Thomas and Derius Davis will certainly get some targets as well, and don’t sleep on redshirt freshman Blair Conwright, apparently. The 5-foot-11 receiver was unstoppable at Lubbock Coronado, compiling 105 receptions for 1,540 yards and 25 touchdowns as a senior in 2018, and he’s been the talk of preseason practices.
“Blair has had a great camp to be honest with you,” Patterson said, according to 247Sports’ Jeremy Clark. “He’s probably caught more balls than anybody else has.”
At the outside receiver positions, there might be more pure talent, but there are more unknowns. Junior Te’Vailance Hunt has a couple highlight-reel catches on his resume, but he has yet to live up to his 4-star rating as a recruit with just 353 career receiving yards. The Frogs nabbed a couple more 4-star prospects in the 2020 class with Quentin Johnston and Savion Williams, both big-bodied receivers with the physical tools to excel in the pass-happy Big 12. Johnston, ranked as the No. 71 player in the country in the 2020 class, has impressed early and could push for a starting job. In Reagor’s absence, the Frogs will need someone to step up at one of the outside positions to provide some security for their inexperienced quarterbacks. But if the scheme truly shifts toward spacing the field more, it should be easier for them to get open and pick up yards after the catch.
The tight ends didn’t play a huge role in the offense the last time Meacham and Cumbie were sharing coordinator responsibilities, but if and when they are called upon, Pro Wells has established himself as the Frogs’ top option, and Artayvious Lynn has developed into a solid role player. Wells has also produced good results from the slot.
On the offensive line, TCU must find a way to drastically improve a position group that gave up the second-most sacks in the Big 12 last year (22). It has to do so while replacing an All-Big 12 right tackle in Lucas Niang, and when TCU got a preview of life without Niang when he missed the last month of the 2019 season, it wasn’t pretty. The Frogs lost another key contributor in left guard Cordel Iwuagwu, who had 32 career starts. No pressure.
Redshirt freshman Andrew Coker appears to have seized control of the right tackle position, while senior Austin Myers and graduate transfer T.J. Storment battle it out on the left side. There are some other young tackles that could make a case for playing time as well, including 4-star true freshman Garrett Hayes, freshman Tyler Guyton, and redshirt freshman Marcus Williams. Juniors Quazzel White and Wes Harris appear to be the favorites to start at right and left guard, respectively. Sophomore Esteban Avila is pushing incumbent starter Coy McMillon at center, and both of them have the flexibility to play guard as well.
The theme continues: there is a lot of young talent and potential there, but not many proven commodities. The Frogs need to find a group that can control the line of scrimmage, otherwise it may not matter who starts at quarterback or how many blue-chip prospects they have at the skill positions.
Defense: All the Stars are Closer
While the TCU offense is defined by untested talent, the defense is headlined by proven playmakers. From arguably the two best returning safeties in college football, to the Big 12’s leading tackler, to a former 5-star recruit who was expected to be a cornerstone of the reigning national champions’ defense, Patterson has plenty to work with this season.
Unlike the offense, no major schematic changes are forthcoming for Patterson’s side of the ball. The Frogs will run his trademark 4–2–5, which uses pattern-matching coverages and positional flexibility to combat the spacing and four-wide sets that define many Big 12 offenses. Thanks to an obsessive attention to detail when watching film, Patterson has an uncanny knack for recognizing exactly what the opposing play caller is going to do based on the down and distance and the personnel grouping. The result is that he calls plays with the intent of every single player covering a specific route or making a specific run fit for a specific play. He rarely leaves two high safeties back to clean up what another player might miss.
That means that when his players know and execute their assignments, nothing is open. Often his more experienced defenders begin to catch some of his ability to predict where a play is going, and they use great leverage and ball skills to force turnovers.
It also means that if any one player misses an assignment, or if the opposing play caller throws in a wrinkle Patterson hasn’t seen, there’s often no one around to salvage the play.
So when there is a breakdown, it’s usually a big one.
Patterson’s best defenses boast the experience to avoid those mistakes and the athleticism to actually execute the assignments. This season, with experienced upperclassmen and athletic freaks in the back seven, the Frogs should be able to avoid glitches and deliver a vintage TCU defensive performance.
Probably the least heralded group on that side of the ball is the defensive line, though there are still some solid pieces there. Senior tackle Corey Bethley returns to the lead the group following the early departure of Ross Blacklock for the NFL. Bethley has started every game each of the last two years, recording 7.5 sacks and 13.5 tackles for loss during that time. Terrell Cooper is expected to start alongside him, though former 4-star Jaquaze Sorrells could challenge for that spot. TCU usually rotates four or five players at tackle, so expect junior George Ellis and freshman Patrick Jenkins to see significant snaps as well.
At defensive end, Ochaun Mathis continues to hold down one of the starting positions. Patterson raved about him last summer, and he has the ideal size (listed at 6-foot-5, 247 pounds) to terrorize opposing passers. That potential yielded solid if unspectacular results in 2019 (2.5 sacks, 9.0 tackles for loss, 40 total tackles). Parker Workman looks to start on the opposite side, and Oklahoma transfer Mark Jackson Jr., sophomore Colt Ellison and senior Brandon Bowen should all see snaps as well. The one true weakness for the Frogs defensively last season was their inability to affect the quarterback consistently. If Mathis can take a significant step forward this season, it would make things easier on the rest of the defense. However, the Frogs brought in another player over the summer who could be the key to unlocking a pass rush.
After already landing Evans and Spielman, the Frogs made arguably their biggest acquisition of the offseason with LSU transfer Marcel Brooks. Brooks, a former 5-star recruit, was granted a waiver to play immediately in 2020, and he has the athleticism to play almost anywhere on defense. While he’s eventually expected to spend most of his time at linebacker, he’ll be asked to rush the quarterback on passing downs as well. That was his role as a freshman in Baton Rouge, recording 8 tackles and 1.5 sacks in limited snaps over 11 games.
The Frogs will be hoping that with more snaps and another year of development, he can use his speed off the edge to create more pressures and more sacks, providing a boost for the TCU pass rush. And like plenty of TCU linebackers in recent years, he could even shift to safety when needed. If he lives up to the hype, his talent and flexibility unlocks myriad possibilities for a defense that was already projected to be one of the best in the conference.
When at linebacker, Brooks would line up next to first-team All-Big 12 selection Garret Wallow. Wallow led the Big 12 in tackles last season with 125, and the former safety is equally comfortable covering pass catchers in space as he is firing through gaps in the run game. With their ability to affect the game on both standard downs and passing downs, Wallow and Brooks could team up to be TCU best starting linebacker duo in years. Filling out the rotation, the Frogs will also have Dee Winters, another rangy former safety who could very well be the starter early in the season while Brooks continues to adjust to the defense, Wyatt Harris, who made six starts last year, and JUCO transfer Jamoi Hodge.
An absurd number of words have been published this offseason about the duo of free safety Trevon Moehrig and weak safety Ar’Darius Washington. They were ranked by Pro Football Focus as the top two returning safeties in college football in 2020. The pair combined for 9 interceptions and 18 pass breakups in 2019. Last season, Moehrig received the highest coverage grade for any safety since PFF started issuing grades for college players in 2014. According to PFF, in two seasons and 276 coverage snaps, Washington has yet to allow a touchdown, and they currently rank him as the No. 1 safety prospect eligible for the 2021 NFL Draft.
What I’m saying is: they’re really good.
Even allowing for regression to the mean after forcing so many turnovers last year, Moehrig and Washington should still make life miserable for opposing passers. At strong safety, La’Kendrick Van Zandt and Nook Bradford both had their moments last season and should offer solid options at the position. Sophomores Atanza Vongor and Josh Foster, redshirt freshman Donovann Collins and freshman Bud Clark could all see snaps at multiple positions in sub packages as well.
Elsewhere in the secondary, the Frogs have to replace a first-round draft pick in cornerback Jeff Gladney and another long-time starter in Julius Lewis. Junior Noah Daniels, who missed last year with an injury, is expected to step into the No. 1 corner role. His combination of length and speed is comparable to Gladney’s, and he showed good ball skills as a redshirt freshman in 2018, forcing pass breakups against Oklahoma and Ohio State.
The other corner spot will go to either Tre’Vius Hodges-Tomlinson or Kee’yon Stewart. Both saw significant snaps in 2019 with Daniels sidelined and Lewis out of the lineup with injuries at different points. Stewart had six starts. Hodges-Tomlinson had one. However, Hodges-Tomlinson seems to have the edge for the starting role, according to Patterson’s latest comments. He’s impressed in camp, and last season he showed great instincts in coverage and made some big plays on special teams. Both he and Stewart have the skills to hold up reasonably well against the receiver talent in Big 12 play.
The Frogs ranked No. 35 in defensive SP+ in 2019, a relatively down year by Patterson’s standards, but still good for third in the Big 12. Should the pass rush improve at all and the stars live up to the hype, the defense could be a top-20 unit in SP+ once again. If the offense can actually score some points and let the defense play with a lead sometimes, allowing Patterson to make more aggressive calls to get after the quarterback, the ceiling could be even higher.
Special Teams: (Not the) Same Old Song and Dance
The Frogs made a significant improvement on special teams last season, jumping up from No. 115 to No. 40 in special teams SP+. However, that jump was mostly thanks to the consistency of All-Big 12 kicker Jonathan Song, who missed only one kick in 2019.
Now Griffin Kell takes over as the starting kicker. The Frogs used Kell at times for longer field goal attempts last season, and he produced solid results in a small sample size, going 3-for-4 with makes from 35, 47, and 52 yards. His only miss came on a 57-yard attempt. Now he’ll also have to handle the shorter attempts previously reserved for Song. Of course, if the offense doesn’t stall out in scoring territory as often as last season, Kell shouldn’t have to kick nearly as many short field goals as Song did. Kell will also likely continue to handle kickoff duties, where he delivered consistent results last season.
The Frogs hoped that Australian punter Jordy Sandy would help them flip the field more consistently last season, but his effect on field position appeared to be negligible in his freshman campaign. In 2018, with Adam Nunez and Andrew David sharing punting duties, opposing offenses had an average starting field position of the 29.4-yard line. In 2019, with Sandy as the starting punter, TCU’s opponents started their drives at the 29-yard line on average. Sandy taking a step forward or another punter rising to challenge him would be a boon for the defense, but again, an improved offense would ideally mean he’s not asked to punt 61 (!) times again this year.
The Frogs will also have to find someone to replace Reagor in the return game, but they have some good candidates. Spielman spent time returning punts and kicks during his time at Nebraska, recording three total return touchdowns in his career.
Davis and Barber have also handled return duties at times for TCU, and Davis also has a punt return touchdown on his resume. Either of them could step in to fill a returner role if necessary.
Schedule: Out ‘Till Fall, We Might Not Come Back at All
The season opener against SMU on Sept. 11 is no longer happening. TCU athletics director Jeremiah Donati said the Frogs “have agreed with SMU to monitor dates throughout the season to potentially make up the game.” Patterson said if TCU tried to make up the game, it would be later on in the season, possibly December. That’s assuming the Frogs don’t have any other games canceled in Big 12 play that would need to be made up, which seems likely. So for now, it appears the Battle for the Iron Skillet won’t happen in 2020.
The first four games of Big 12 play look brutal for the Frogs:
- At home against an Iowa State team that boasts quarterback Brock Purdy and defensive coordinator Jon Heacock, who both gave TCU fits last season in a blowout loss.
- On the road against Texas. Despite all the well-deserved jokes every year about the Longhorns being “back,” they should be at a point with their talent development and returning production where they are legitimately poised to have a strong season.
- At home against Kansas State, which beat the Frogs last season and is on a good trajectory under second-year head coach Chris Klieman.
- At home against Oklahoma, which is 8–1 against TCU since the Frogs joined the league.
Three of those games are at home, but in a year in which Amon G. Carter Stadium is only planning to seat 12,000 fans (which is still probably too many!), it’s hard to know how much home-field advantage is worth. There’s a bye before Oklahoma, but who knows if that will get filled with another game as schedules get shuffled and games get postponed.
TCU then travels to Waco to play Baylor and first-year head coach Dave Aranda. Baylor loses a ton of seniors from the top defense in the Big 12 last season, as well as Denzel Mims and JaMycal Hasty on offense, which could give the Frogs a better shot at revenge for a 29–23 triple-overtime loss last season. The Frogs then host Texas Tech, which is a matchup that breeds weirdness, before playing at West Virginia, the team that ended their hopes of a bowl game last season. TCU went 1–2 against those three opponents last year, and each of those three matchups were decided by one score. TCU was 1–6 in one-possession games in 2019. Especially since many of those games hinged on turnovers, which are largely random, there is reason to believe simply by virtue of regression to the mean that that mark almost has to improve in 2020. Each of these three matchups projects to be close this season. If the Frogs get a couple more bounces to go their way, and flip their record against these opponents to 2–1, it’ll be a major success.
There’s another open date scheduled — at least for now — for Nov. 21, followed by a road game against Kansas. TCU will then finish the regular season at home against Oklahoma State. The Big 12 has built in the option to flex the conference title game from Dec. 12 to Dec. 19, which would create an extra week in the schedule if the Frogs or any other teams still have games to make up after Dec. 5.
With Duggan at the helm and moderate improvement from the offense, a 5–4 record against that Big 12 slate looked perfectly feasible. With some combination of Downing/Brown/et. al at quarterback instead?
Two years ago, the future of TCU football looked as bright as it ever had. The Frogs were coming off their third 11-win season in four years in the Big 12. They were recruiting at a level never seen in program history, including signing their two highest-rated quarterback recruits ever in back-to-back classes. Cumbie was beloved and looked like could be the heir-apparent to Patterson whenever the head coach decided to retire.
Now the Frogs are staring down yet another season where they could be scrapping at the end of the year to try to finish over .500. While they’ve continued to recruit at a high level, their two passing prodigies have moved on to other programs. A third quarterback in that line of blue-chippers has been sidelined, and it’s unclear when or if he will be able to play football again. Cumbie is no longer calling plays, and he appears lucky to have held onto his job for another year.
This season might have been a referendum on the state the program. However, the Frogs will — justifiably — get a mulligan due to the pandemic and the state of the quarterback position.
No school will be able to judge its coaches or its program infrastructure fairly in a year with this many schedule changes, player opt-outs and logistical hurdles. Some schools will surely do so anyway, but it would be a surprise to see TCU make wholesale changes to its schemes or coaching staff at the end of this season. Any judgments about the Meacham-Cumbie offense, the Kill hire, or how many years Patterson should continue coaching at TCU will likely have to wait.
However, if the season were to actually proceed in its entirety — a colossal “if” — and if the Frogs were to somehow alchemize a winning season out of these bizarre circumstances, it would create a lot of optimism heading into 2021, a season where the roster could be replete with enough talent and experience on both sides of the ball to be considered a contender in the Big 12. And it would make the program’s overall outlook seem bright once again.
