College football notes: Much of TCU’s pyramid still left to shade
FORT WORTH, Texas — TCU football coach Gary Patterson has what he considers a perfect illustration to show his eighth-ranked Horned Frogs all they still have left to try to accomplish. They see it every time they go into the team meeting room.
The Frogs are 4-0, with road wins at Arkansas and thenNo. 6 Oklahoma
State in the last game before their open date. They have gone from unranked in the preseason to a Top 10 team to start October.
But their pyramid of goals still has a lot of unblemished white space waiting to be shaded in purple.
“You guys see this. This pretty much sums it up,” Patterson said, standing by the poster hanging at the front of the room. “You want to know how important the rest of the season is, and what Oklahoma State was. See that small sliver. See all the rest of this white. There’s a lot of work to do.”
They play their Big 12 home opener Saturday against No. 23 West Virginia (3-1, 1-0), which entered the Power Five conference with TCU in 2012.
Nine levels of goals make up TCU’s pyramid — modeled after 10-time NCAA champion basketball coach John Wooden’s pyramid of success at UCLA. Goals reached are shaded in the school’s color.
The bottom three levels for the Frogs already are fully purple. The bottom two rows are based on offseason and off-field building blocks like attitude, chemistry and accountability, and the third is for the three nonconference victories.
On a row labeled “Don’t Back Down” to mark the five Big 12 road games, the first of the five is listed as OSU. So there is only a thin strip of purple to signify the 44-31 win in Stillwater more than a week ago.
“Just a slice of what we need to fully accomplish,” safety Niko Small said Tuesday. “It’s a whole pyramid. Just winning one part of it, or not building a foundation, it could crumble. … That’s not really aesthetic to look at and just see a whole bunch of white through the purple. But once you see it, and there’s a lot of purple on it, it looks a lot better.”
The pyramid has been part of TCU’s program throughout Patterson’s time, from three years as defensive coordinator to his 17 seasons as head coach. Each player signs the poster before the season, making his commitment to do his part to help accomplish those goals.
Michigan big for MSU
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Mark Dantonio is happy to skip the platitudes when it comes to Michigan State’s biggest rivalry.
Other coaches may play it cool before a game of this magnitude, but who are they fooling?
“I think that’s all coach-talk, personally. I think coaches know what games are important. They understand,” Dantonio said Tuesday. “They can stand up here and say, ‘Well, this is just another football game,’ but it’s not.”
The Spartans always take their matchup with Michigan seriously, and Saturday night’s game in Ann Arbor will be no different. The seventh-ranked Wolverines are clear favorites, and although Michigan State has won seven of the last nine meetings, the pendulum swung in the other direction last year. Michigan won 32-23, part of a 3-9 season for the Spartans that they’re hoping was an aberration.
Dantonio has been MSU’s head coach for the past 10 meetings with Michigan, and he was an assistant for the Spartans earlier in his career. Turning this rivalry in Michigan State’s favor was a significant accomplishment, and he’s been more than willing to call the Wolverines out from time to time.
“I am who I am and I just react the way I react sometimes,” Dantonio said. “We get ready to play. They have got a good football team. Have a great amount of respect for what they have accomplished down there. Always have had that. My goal when I came here was to make that a rivalry. I think it’s a rivalry. We’ll leave it at that.”
But after dominating the rivalry for a little while, MSU is in danger of ceding the upper hand.
Cougars get to go
Washington State will finally get a taste of the road after going unbeaten at home to start the season.
The 11th-ranked Cougars’ quirky schedule had them play the first five games of the season in Pullman. That changeswhen they travel to face injury-riddled Oregon (4-1, 1-1 Pac-12) this Saturday.
Among other things, it means the players finally will get their cheeseburgers. Running back Jamal Morrow loves the free cheeseburgers the team gets when they travel on Alaska Airlines to road games.
Morrow said all that home cooking this year has “been weird. I’m really excited to play an away game.”
Coach Mike Leach also acknowledged looking forward to hitting the road, noting that home-field advantage isn’t typically a big deal in the Pac-12.
“This is a funny conference,” he said. “Teams on the road play well.”
Except in Pullman so far. The Cougars (5-0, 2-0) beat Oregon State there on Sept. 16 and then upset Southern California 30-27 last Friday.
“It’s a whole pyramid. Just winning one part of it, or not building a foundation, it could crumble.”
– NIKO SMALL
Hokies seek ACC win
Virginia Tech’s first foray into Atlantic Coast Conference play this season didn’t go so well. The No. 16 Hokies (4-1, 0-1) fell behind 24-3 against No. 2 Clemson on the way to a 31-17 home loss.
This week, they will try to get back to their winning ways on the road at Boston College (2-3, 0-2), one of the more unique programs in the conference.
The Eagles typically focus on running the ball behind a huge line and having a defense geared to stopping the run. It’s a formula that defensive coordinator Bud Foster said has often given Virginia Tech fits.
“I see them just each week getting better and getting back into what they want to do,” Foster said Tuesday, speaking of the Eagles’ focus on their ground game. “… You see them wanting to do that, and be patient enough to line up and hit you in the mouth play after play after play, and see if you’re tough enough to handle it.”