“Well, I told them before the ball game that usually in yearly games, big games, you lose them more than you win them. And so when you can't -- you can't give them 21 points.
“But, defensively, we had to turn up the knob late. We didn't make a couple of adjustments. One touchdown was my fault. But outside of that, I thought our team played a really good football game. Ohio State is a good football game. You got to give them a lot of credit.”
That was TCU football coach Gary Patterson's first remarks on a slugfest at AT&T Stadium that saw his No. 15 Horned Frogs fade in the second half and lose an entertaining game to No. 4 Ohio State, 40-28.
Asked about what his team takes away from this – and more on the 21 points TCU gave up to Ohio State, by way of a strip sack that led to a touchdown, an Ohio Sate pick-six and a muffed punt that led to another score, Patterson said he was proud of his team's performance, but needs more in a game like this one.
“I mean, they fought,” he said. “We made mistakes. We got 37 new guys on this team, young guys, new guys, transfers. And I thought -- I thought they fought their tails off. We need to make a couple adjustments. We need to make a couple more plays.
“Here's what I thought: I thought we didn't allow them a touchdown in the first half defensively. And then they turned up the knob and we had to do better.
“We came into this ball game to win, Patterson said. “We didn't come in here to play well. Okay? But the key was you can't -- you also can't get upset about when you give them things. And we gave
them -- we gave them 21 points. And defense, we probably gave them 1. And one of them was my fault.
“So you take 21 points away and you -- because they really didn't do that to themselves. We did it to ourselves. So you -- you got to be careful how you do that.”
Interestingly, Patterson thought his team had the speed advantage in the game.
“But, I mean, I think, talking to their coaches coming off the field, we have a really good football team. I think they play a lot of people. I trust their judgment. I'm not talk about their assistant; I'm talking about their coordinators and their head coach.
“But I think they have a very good football team. And I think we had a speed advantage. We needed to keep using it.”
While giving Ohio State ample credit, Patterson pointed out how his team rose to the occasion.
“You got to give them credit for getting the points and making the deals, but you can't give good football teams points.”– TCU's Gary Patterson
“So, for us, you've got to give again -- I think you got to give Ohio State a lot of credit in the whole situation because I think they did a great job of capitalizing that they made plays when they needed to on defense, and we've got to tackle them. We've got to tackle them.
“But, I mean, I'm looking at the deal here. And, I mean, they only were 4 of 12 on third downs. They were averaging 73% on third downs. Our kids were -- we were almost 50%, 7 of 15. So we did a good job, really.
“Again, I'll just come back to it: You can't give them points. 21 points is a lot of points. You got to give them credit for getting the points and making the deals, but you can't -- you can't give good football teams points. I mean, I don't -- if anybody here wasn't -- they didn't think it was a good football game, then you probably should just start watching some other sport.”
