Tuesday, October 16, 2001

Washed away
Patterson concerned with Frog defense
Frogs not making any defensive changes, Patterson says
By Brandon Ortiz
Sports Editor

The TCU defense has given up over 400 yards total offense in two of its last three

games and head coach Gary Patterson is worried.

“I am concerned — who wouldn’t be?” Patterson said.

Rusty Costanza/The Times-Pickayune Senior weak safety Charlie Owens is dragged by Tulane’s Kris Coleman as he scores on a 39-yard reception in the first quarter.

Overall, the Frogs (3-3, 1-1 Conference USA) gave up 471 total yards offense Saturday in their 48-22 loss to Tulane (2-5, 1-2 C-USA). Most of it is in the air. Tulane quarterback Patrick Ramsey shredded the Frogs defense for 355 passing yards and four touchdowns. All of his touchdowns came in the first half, as Tulane let up in the second half.

The worst may not be over.

The Frogs will still face the likes of quarterback Dave Ragone (264.5 yards a game, 10 touchdowns) of Louisville, Jeff Kelly (210.5 yards a game, 114.78 passing efficiency) of Southern Miss and David Garrard (186 yards a game, eight touchdowns) of East Carolina.

Patterson said the Frogs will not make any changes, scheme, wise in light of their struggles against good passing teams. It is a matter of players executing, he said.

“Bottom line is we didn’t cover,” Patterson said. “When a guy is supposed to cover him and he runs right past him there is not much you can do about it. I have been playing this coverage scheme since I was a coach at Sonoma (Calif.) State — you can count it back, 13 years. I’ve watched strong safeties, weak safeties run the same scheme, do the same things and its no mistake that it’s led the nation in defense and won (conference) championships.

“At Utah State, we went to a bowl game and won a championship in two years. At Navy — we’re not talking about a Mecca of college football here — we went to a bowl game. At New Mexico we hadn’t been to a bowl game in two years. And at TCU. I am not backing down on what I believe because I believe what we do is real good.”

Tulane exploded for 24 points in the second quarter to blow the Frogs out of the water. With a little over two minutes left in the first half, Tulane held a 31-7 lead.

Ramsey threw four passes over 40 yards in the first half, two of them for touchdowns.

Patterson said the Frogs did not keep their composure and Tulane capitalized to widen its lead.

“Defensively, we had to keep our patience,” Patterson said. “We gave up a little bit in that ball game and lost our composure. We had to keep our patience we had to tackle well, we did not do that very well. We could not allow the big play.”

What made the situation worse, Patterson said, was that Tulane did not throw anything new at the offense. While Tulane did throw a pass up the middle to fullback Kris Coleman (a play similar to what Houston ran Sept. 29 that resulted in a 21-yard gain), Patterson said his defense had practiced for it during the week.

“If they did something to us last night that we had not seen, and they got a good play against the defense, then I would not be upset,” Patterson said. “My frustration is they did the same things we worked on. The fullback down the middle pass, we actually worked on that on four reps on Tuesday and Wednesday. We knew they were going to come back on it.”

Brandon Ortiz
b.p.ortiz@student.tcu.edu