What Saturday's Big 12 Games Mean for TCU, The Problems Have Faces Now
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There comes a point early in every football season when you have to stop talking about what you thought teams were going to be.
We're about there.
All offseason, we study returning starters, transfers, recruiting classes and preseason projections and try to figure out what everybody is going to look like.
Then they start playing.
Eventually, the tape overrules the projections.
That's what caught my attention while watching TCU's upcoming opponents this weekend. We still don't know what any of these teams will ultimately become, but we know a lot more about the problems they can create than we did a few weeks ago.
And the first one is waiting in Orlando.
UCF: Don't Give Them Anything Extra
The final score says UCF beat Georgia State 44-30.
How the Knights got there is more interesting.
Georgia State actually outgained UCF 485-390 and piled up 323 yards in the first half. The Panthers led 24-20 at halftime.
Then the game changed.
Georgia State failed on fourth-and-1 in its own territory and gave UCF the ball at the 34. UCF blocked a punt. Georgia State threw interceptions on back-to-back possessions, and UCF forced three turnovers after halftime.
That's the part I'd circle while preparing for TCU's trip to Orlando.
UCF showed it doesn't have to control a game from beginning to end to take control of the scoreboard.
Give the Knights a short field. Lose a possession. Get a punt blocked. Turn the football over. Suddenly, you're playing the kind of game they want to play.
Georgia State also showed there are plays to be made against UCF's defense. The Panthers moved the football and finished with nearly 500 yards, another reminder that the final score does not always tell the full story.
So, the lesson for TCU isn't complicated.
Make UCF beat you.
Protect the football. Don't give away field position. Be sound on special teams. Make the Knights drive the length of the field over and over again.
TCU's first Big 12 opponent showed Saturday that it knows how to turn extra possessions and short fields into points.
Don't give UCF the opportunity.
BYU: Making a Linebacker Wrong
BYU presents a completely different problem.
The Cougars beat Colorado State 41-23, and it wasn't that close. BYU led 38-7 before Colorado State scored twice late.
LJ Martin ran for 176 yards and three touchdowns on 15 carries, and BYU finished with 332 rushing yards and 559 total yards. Performances like that are helping establish the Cougars' place in the early Big 12 hierarchy.
Those are impressive numbers.
But from a linebacker's seat, I'm not just thinking about how to stop Martin.
I'm thinking about what Martin makes me do.
That's the chess match at linebacker. You're reading the offensive line and the backfield, trying to feel what's developing around you without guessing.
Then a back starts gashing you, and now you want to get downhill a little faster.
That's exactly what the offense wants.
Take one step too many toward the line of scrimmage, and you've opened space behind you. Start worrying about that space, and they hand the ball back to Martin.
Now you're wrong either way.
Bear Bachmeier attempted only 16 passes Saturday.
He threw for 227 yards.
That's the point.
Real offensive balance isn't about having the same number of rushing and passing yards.
It's about conflict.
Can I make a defender choose between two things he's responsible for and then punish whichever one he picks?
Right now, BYU can.
That's a very different problem than UCF presents, and TCU doesn't have to solve it yet.
But I'd file that tape away.
West Virginia: The Math Changes
West Virginia showed TCU another kind of problem.
Michael Hawkins Jr. rushed for 123 yards and three touchdowns in West Virginia's 38-27 win over No. 25 Virginia.
Cam Cook added another 123 rushing yards. Those performances add another layer to the Big 12 numbers beginning to define the conference.
When the quarterback can legitimately hurt you with his legs, the math changes.
If he hands the ball off and stands there, the defense doesn't have to account for him as a runner.
When he can keep it, somebody has to.
Now the defensive end's responsibility can change. A linebacker may pick up another gap. A safety may have to become part of the run fit.
And every defender you bring toward the football is one you've taken away from something else.
Virginia saw it firsthand.
Hawkins converted a third-and-5 with his legs and scored on another keeper two plays later. On a different touchdown, he showed a pitch one way, reversed field and walked into the end zone untouched.
Then look at the passing numbers.
Hawkins completed only 10 passes, but those completions went for 190 yards and two touchdowns.
That's what the quarterback run game can eventually do to a defense.
Your eyes start drifting into the backfield. You become a little more aggressive against the run. You take one step forward.
And that's when the ball goes over your head.
That's the problem Hawkins creates.
It's not simply that TCU eventually has to defend a mobile quarterback. It's that his ability to run can change everybody else's responsibility before the ball is even snapped.
That's a different kind of preparation.
And now TCU knows it's on the schedule.
Texas Tech-Houston: Forget What It Looked Like on Paper
Texas Tech and Houston gave us something different.
Not necessarily a schematic problem.
A reminder about trying to figure out this conference before the games are played.
Houston went into Lubbock and jumped out to a 10-0 lead. Tech answered, but Houston didn't disappear.
Houston finished with 458 yards to Tech's 425 and ran 75 plays to Tech's 60. Then Houston drove 88 yards in the final two minutes, scored with 49 seconds remaining and suddenly the whole game came down to one two-point conversion.
Tech stopped it.
28-26.
I'm not going to use one game to declare the Big 12 wide open or pretend Texas Tech and Houston are suddenly the same team.
That's not what Saturday proved.
What it did was give us another piece of actual evidence about the conference TCU is entering.
The names on the jerseys and whatever we thought about them in August don't play the games.
Houston went into Lubbock and made Texas Tech play for four quarters.
That's worth remembering.
Not because it predicts what either team will do the rest of the season, but because it reinforces why these games matter when we're trying to understand TCU's schedule.
Every week replaces a little more projection with evidence.
And we're finally starting to have enough evidence to see what these teams might ask TCU to solve.
The Problems Have Faces Now
That's what changed for me this weekend.
A month ago, TCU's schedule was still mostly names.
UCF.
BYU.
West Virginia.
Texas Tech.
Houston.
You could look at recruiting rankings, returning production and preseason predictions and make assumptions about all of them.
Now we have tape.
And the problems are starting to have faces.
UCF has shown it can create extra possessions, flip field position and turn short fields into points.
BYU has a running game that can make linebackers start questioning their eyes.
West Virginia has a quarterback who changes the numbers every time he becomes part of the run game.
And Texas Tech-Houston reminded us why what teams show us on Saturdays eventually matters more than what we thought about them in August.
None of that tells us what TCU's record will be.
It tells us something much more useful right now.
What problems are coming.
Because that's how players and coaches eventually see a schedule.
Not as 12 team names.
As 12 different sets of problems you have to solve.
TCU's nonconference portion is over. After beating Arkansas State in its final tuneup, the Horned Frogs can no longer view these conference opponents from a distance.
Now those problems start becoming real.
UCF comes first.
And after Saturday, TCU has a much better idea of what will be waiting when it gets to Orlando.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/tcu as What Saturday's Big 12 Games Mean for TCU, The Problems Have Faces Now.
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