Posted on Fri, Nov. 21, 2008

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It’s time for TCU fans to say their goodbyes

Previous Columns

Gil LeBreton

• OU’s struggling defense needs to stand up against Tech
• BCS tiebreaker spells trouble for Texas Longhorns
• Against Lakers, maybe Dallas Mavericks just weren’t going to win
• Rumors aside, Gary Patterson’s status can be stuff of legend
• Tony Romo has to prove he can wear a cape as well as a ball cap
• TCU deserves lots of credit for Utah's run at BCS bowl
• Gary Patterson’s focus has TCU Horned Frogs on brink of a great season
• Maybe a Cowboys’ bailout is still possible
• Despite naysayers, the Giants are still darlings of the NFC
• Happily, Rockets won’t be in town every night
• Texas Tech fans remain calm, prepared to storm on Texas Longhorns
• Even with Brad Johnson, Dallas Cowboys need touchdowns in game plan
• Oklahoma State tested Texas’ mettle
• TCU Horned Frogs know where they stand with biased BCS
• Jerry Jones is outsmarting himself trying to be a football wizard
• Johnson proves Romo needs to mend quickly for Dallas Cowboys
• TCU leaves no doubt about its superiority
• Times have changed, and so have challenges for Frogs
• Trade gives Jerry a trump in a PR hand played badly

» More

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S-T/Ben Noey Jr.

TCU coach Gary Patterson and the Horned Frogs will be looking to win their 40th game in four seasons Saturday. S-T/Ben Noey Jr.

A few minutes before kickoff Saturday afternoon, TCU linebacker Jason Phillips will run onto the field through the south end zone tunnel at Amon G. Carter Stadium for the final time.

The same for Blake Schlueter. Robert Henson. James Vess. Aaron Brown. Twenty-two TCU seniors in all.

A mostly purple-clad audience, expected to number around 30,000, will routinely rise to its feet and applaud. A modest Seniors Day sendoff likely will ensue.

And just like that, one of the best TCU teams in 113 years of playing football will be gone.

Thirty-nine victories over four seasons — with a chance for a record-tying 40 against Air Force — and they will have played their final regular-season game at the old stadium.

No group of Horned Frogs in 73 years has won as many games in four seasons.

Gone will be a team that reached as high as The Associated Press’s top 16 in three of the past four football seasons. Gone will be the NCAA’s No. 1-ranked defense, its No. 1-ranked rushing defense and college football’s third-stingiest defense at allowing points.

Gone will be a TCU bunch that knows that in Utah, it came within a missed tackle, a dropped pass or a botched field goal of realizing its dream of earning a spot in a BCS bowl.

And last, but certainly not least, among the farewells Saturday, it could be the final game at Amon G. Carter Stadium for the current head coach.

Gary Patterson bristled when I suggested as much Thursday, and I don’t blame him. But it’s inevitable that as seasons wind down over the next two weekends, and athletic directors realize that their coaches couldn’t even get their teams to the EagleBank or the Meineke Car Care bowls, job openings will arise. Patterson’s phone is destined to ring for a lot of them.

A Forbes magazine article last season crudely attempted to calculate who were college football’s most overpaid and underpaid head coaches. The magazine used a formula mostly based upon salary and victories achieved over the previous three seasons. It did not include coaches from the Mountain West Conference.

Ohio State’s Jim Tressel was declared to be college football’s best bargain. Which is odd, because some of us might have named him the worst. Mike Riley of Oregon State and Jim Grobe of Wake Forest were calculated as second- and third-most underpaid.

The most overpaid? Kirk Ferentz of Iowa with his almost-.500 record and $3.4 million salary.

And where would Patterson have fit into the list?

Probably the top four most underpaid, maybe even ahead of Riley, Grobe and USC’s Pete Carroll.

If his team wins Saturday, Patterson also will have 40 wins in four seasons and 66 victories over the past seven.

Patterson didn’t want to rank them Thursday. But with a little arm-twisting, he admitted that this bunch has been as good as the 2002 and 2005 TCU teams. The latter finished 11-1 and 11th in the season’s final AP poll.

And this one, were it not for the heartbreaking defeat at Utah, would be comfortably ensconced in the top 10, waiting for its BCS phone call.

"The reason they’ve been successful," Patterson said, "is that they’ve been highly competitive, very emotional and accountable. They’ve grown to be a defensive and offensive group that’s learned how to hunt together."

They have played, in other words, like a team with 22 seniors. The good college football teams all seem to have speed and size and talented athletes. But the best ones also have senior leaders.

A college coach’s job, therefore, is never done — replacing seniors, finding new leaders, building men.

"It scares you because you’ve got to grow the next ones up," Patterson said.

Will it finally scare Patterson, who’s been growing Frogs for eight seasons, to another, higher-paying coaching job?

That’s not a fair question to ask this week, Patterson rasped back at me Thursday.

Maybe not.

For what might end up being the winningest seniors in TCU football history, there’s a final regular-season home game to play Saturday. One more chance for TCU fans to cheer and hug what some of us think has been Gary Patterson’s best team.

Don’t hold back.