• The KillerFrogs

Bill Connelly's TCU Preview

MAcFroggy

Active Member
Bill Connelly is amazing. He does previews of all 130 teams, and today is TCUs. I can not recommend his work enough.

https://www.sbnation.com/college-fo...332/tcu-football-2018-preview-schedule-roster

TCU is the most proven Big 12 program this side of Norman
Gary Patterson’s Horned Frogs are a QB away from another run to the Big 12 title game.

Bill C’s annual preview series of every FBS team in college football continues. Catch up here!

Last fall, I visited Stillwater to write a pair of pieces about Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy. We talked about what it takes to stand out as a non-Oklahoma in the parity-heavy Big 12.

“The years where we’ve really been able to roll, we stayed really healthy,” Gundy said, before using the Horned Frogs as an example. “OSU and TCU are the same. We recruit the same kids, and in my opinion both teams are very well-coached. Last year (2016) we played them, they were a little beat up, and we were rolling pretty good, so we blew their doors off down there.

“This year, they came in, they were rolling, we had two injuries, and we weren’t the same. Your USCs, your Texases, your OUs, your Alabamas, they can afford injuries we can’t.”

Because TCU has more recently made a serious national title run (2014) and had just defeated the Pokes when the interview took place, my reflex reaction was that Gundy was flattering himself a bit. But it turned out to be a pretty accurate notion.

..... (See MUCH more in the link)
 

Raw Frog

Full Member
The only point I disagree with him on is where he thinks Turp has been here forever. Seems like he should be a junior to me..... his time has flown by.
 

jake102

Active Member
The defensive graph was really interesting. Awesome defense except when we have a breakdown. And when we have a breakdown it almost always results in a long TD. I do wonder what our defensive rankings look like if you only have to play OU once last season.
 

SnoSki

Full Member
Thanks for posting. Definitely worth the read though a few very small errors. I am excited to see how J Johnson plugs in to the defense.

I need to rewatch the Tech game. Forgot that Robinson went 6-17 passing but I think the wind and a minor injury played a role?

Also if Robinson is as good as I think he can be we have a LOT better chance than 48% to win at UT.
 

PhillyFrog

Active Member
Thanks for posting. Definitely worth the read though a few very small errors. I am excited to see how J Johnson plugs in to the defense.

I need to rewatch the Tech game. Forgot that Robinson went 6-17 passing but I think the wind and a minor injury played a role?

Also if Robinson is as good as I think he can be we have a LOT better chance than 48% to win at UT.

Correct on wind and hurts. Also could have been better on ball security.

 

Eight

Member
The defensive graph was really interesting. Awesome defense except when we have a breakdown. And when we have a breakdown it almost always results in a long TD. I do wonder what our defensive rankings look like if you only have to play OU once last season.

i think that is basically been the history of gary's defense at tcu.

challenge offenses to either take lower risk chances which result in smaller gains or roll the dice and try to hit bigger plays. frogs defense has been especially effective against offenses that they take away one part of the offensive attack and can focus on the other such as taking the run game away from spread teams

ou has been a challenge because they have had success running and passing the ball.

baylor at times was a challenge under briles because they always had one route going deep every play and they did not always act based upon down and distance.
 

satis1103

DAOTONPYH EHT LIAH LLA
The spider-web charts in that article immediately lose my attention. There are more acronyms there than at a convention for the federal government.
 

jake102

Active Member
i think that is basically been the history of gary's defense at tcu.

challenge offenses to either take lower risk chances which result in smaller gains or roll the dice and try to hit bigger plays. frogs defense has been especially effective against offenses that they take away one part of the offensive attack and can focus on the other such as taking the run game away from spread teams

ou has been a challenge because they have had success running and passing the ball.

baylor at times was a challenge under briles because they always had one route going deep every play and they did not always act based upon down and distance.

I felt like we had a LOT of total defensive breakdowns last season. Off hand I can think of two against WVU and multiples against OU over the two games.

The defense was really awesome until it wasn't
 

Eight

Member
again, i think this to some part is a byproduct of the defense daring offenses to take high risk shots against them.

rarely has a patterson defense allowed long drives across an entire season in my recollections. teams hitting for big plays is not new, number of big plays has varied based upon the defense and maybe the reasons (miscommunication compared to talent compared to just a great offensive play), but teams hitting for long passes and in the case of ou long runs isn't new
 

jake102

Active Member
again, i think this to some part is a byproduct of the defense daring offenses to take high risk shots against them.

rarely has a patterson defense allowed long drives across an entire season in my recollections. teams hitting for big plays is not new, number of big plays has varied based upon the defense and maybe the reasons (miscommunication compared to talent compared to just a great offensive play), but teams hitting for long passes and in the case of ou long runs isn't new

I agree that we have always been susceptible to the big pass, but I thought last season we were susceptible to the big play due to coverage miscommunication/breakdown as opposed to just getting beat. The Briles teams would hit big plays but it was usually because their WR simply beat our CB/safety deep. Last season there were quite a few instances where we simply didn't have anyone covering a guy... at least one WVU TD was a total breakdown, the OU TD in Big12 CCG where Boesen went into coverage for some reason, the other long TD where safety wasn't in position. We actually did a good job covering the deep ball..... when we covered it. It was weird.
 

FrogLifeYo

Active Member
I understand the only 3/4 Offensive starters return narrative every reviewer is throwing out there but when you look at our roster and the returning contributors, I truly feel like O-line and QB is the only spot we lost starters. While Diarse and White were nice contributors for us, I don’t see a problem replacing their production. If anything I think will miss Diarse for his toughness and leadership. In my opinion we return essentially 6-7 starters on Offense and 8 on def..We are loaded..S-Rob plays up to talent and we can protect him we’ll win the Big 12
 

FrogLifeYo

Active Member
So UT is a favorite to beat us?
Correct...By most analysts...Hard to believe that after all the beat downs we’ve given them in recent years, they continue to get the benefit of doubt.

Consensus by most “experts” has been 1. OU 2. WVU 3. TX 4. TCU...been a few exceptions but most have us at 4Th best with a chance to move to 2 if S.Rob plays well
 

TX_Krötenechse

Active Member
So UT is a favorite to beat us?
At least in Connelly’s numbers, yes, although it’s basically a toss-up. I haven’t read his article about UT, if he’s written it already, but I suspect it’s the same story - UT has the talent to succeed but needs to actually put them together on the field. They’re losing a lot of defensive pieces and Ehlinger won’t last another season like the last, so they have a chance of complete collapse, but they do also have an immense amount of pure talent that could theoretically project them to the top.
 

GeoFrog

Active Member
Who knew that a Scottish comedian knew so much about Big12 Football.

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Wexahu

Full Member
I understand the only 3/4 Offensive starters return narrative every reviewer is throwing out there but when you look at our roster and the returning contributors, I truly feel like O-line and QB is the only spot we lost starters. While Diarse and White were nice contributors for us, I don’t see a problem replacing their production. If anything I think will miss Diarse for his toughness and leadership. In my opinion we return essentially 6-7 starters on Offense and 8 on def..We are loaded..S-Rob plays up to talent and we can protect him we’ll win the Big 12

I think we are pretty much loaded on defense and running back, but I don't totally understand the hype our WR group is getting. It kind of assumes a couple things....one, that Reagor is a dominating player (which he might be, but he hasn't shown that quite yet) and two, that all the supposedly very talented kids that haven't played yet are really good (which nobody knows yet).

Right now I see the WR group as a Reagor injury away from having some pretty serious issues.
 
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