Posted on 08/14/2007 6:35:47 PM PDT by GOP_Raider
TCU coach Gary Patterson went on a premeditated rant before his Horned Frogs played their Mountain West Conference football opener last season.
The Frogs had just held Texas Tech without a touchdown to extend the nation's longest Division IA winning streak to 13 games. That's when the coach seethed to reporters about how "people have been underselling our kids for years." He griped about lack of respect and his team being "treated like a stepchild" in Texas.
The only problem was that his team didn't back up the talk.
Five days later, the Horned Frogs lost at home to BYU. Then they lost at Utah the following week. Patterson says that if his team had beaten those two, it "could have run the table" in conference.
TCU recovered to win its last eight games and still finished with its third 11-win season in four years.
Now the Horned Frogs, with nine starters back on a dominating defense, are heavily favored to win the conference title.
The main obstacles for the Frogs -- again -- will be defending champ BYU and Utah. The Cougars went undefeated in the league like TCU did in its inaugural 2005 season. The Utes capped last season with their sixth straight bowl victory.
Please put me on the list. I can’t wait, I’m in Beckham central and need a real sport to hang on to.
Do you know why Louisiana Tech is in the WAC? It makes no geographic sense. If any one would know it’s you.
Playing at Texas will be their biggest challenge this season.
Well if memory serves, La Tech was an independent through about 2001. During that time, the monstrosity that was the 16 team WAC broke up and the half that included BYU, Utah, Wyoming, CSU, UNLV, New Mexico, UNLV, and San Diego State left to create the Mountain West Conference. Back in 2001, the Sun Belt Conference was formed for football, but the WAC had an opening or several. So in ‘01, the WAC added Boise State and La Tech.
While the Sun Belt makes a lot more sense geographically for them—hell, even Conference USA would work a little better—they might have been thinking that they would have a little better exposure playing in the WAC than the Sun Belt.
Anyway, that’s my best educated guess going completely from memory.
Absolutely. I’ll add you when I get off work tonight.
The WAC also has two pain in the arse road trips, one to Hawai’i and the other to Louisiana Tech. Last year’s “People’s Champion” Boise State has to make both trips this season.
http://www.nationalchamps.net/NCAA/college_football_2007_schedules/boisestate.htm
I don’t know that I’d call a “road trip to Hawaii” a pain-in-the-arse...well, not as a player, anyway. Now, a road trip to Louisiana, that’s a different story.
Don’t ferget Air Force.
I’m not so sure about Air Force with a new head coach replacing Fisher DeBerry this year. AFA over the past few years tends to struggle a bit once they get into the final 3-4 games of the year.
On the other hand, TCU does play the Falcons in Colorado Springs on the 13th of September.
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