Texas and Big 12 Capsules: TCU's goal this week: Avoid becoming next Ole Miss
FORT WORTH (AP) — TCU coach Gary Patterson was quick to provide his fourth-ranked Horned Frogs a fresh example about the danger of overlooking an opponent.
"I told them in the Sunday meeting we didn't need to be the next Ole Miss losing to another Ohio Valley school," Patterson said Tuesday.
TCU (1-0), up two spots in the new AP Top 25 poll, plays its home opener Saturday against Tennessee Tech of the Ohio Valley Conference. The Golden Eagles (0-1) are in the same league as Jacksonville State, which pulled off one of the biggest opening weekend shockers with its double-overtime victory at Mississippi.
"Not very long, not very long," receiver Bart Johnson said when asked how long it took Patterson to reference the SEC team's loss.
TCU may have already crossed one of its biggest hurdles to another undefeated regular season with the 30-21 victory Saturday over then-No. 24 Oregon State. But Patterson isn't going to let his team overlook Tennessee Tech — or anybody else. He still has memories of his first home game as TCU's head coach in 2001, a 27-24 overtime loss to Northwestern State.
"I still remember what I felt about that one," Patterson said. "I thought I was going to be cleaning my office out that Sunday."
Since that 2001 loss to Northwestern State, TCU has had little problem with FCS teams, those formerly known as Division I-AA. The Frogs beat UC Davis 46-13 in 2006, Stephen F. Austin 67-7 two years ago and Texas State 56-21 last September. All of those were home openers.
Patterson will point out, though, that only Utah scored more points last season against TCU than Texas State.
Tennessee Tech, coached by Watson Brown, is coming off a season-opening 44-3 loss at No. 14 Arkansas of the SEC. The Golden Eagles didn't have a turnover in the game, and led 3-0 after the first quarter. It turns out that one of Patterson's first coaching jobs was as a graduate assistant at Tennessee Tech while working on a masters in educational administration that he finished in 1984.
He has now made it to his 10th season as a head coach, and the Frogs finally became a BCS buster last year with their first undefeated regular season since their only national championship in 1938. The Frogs realize they likely will have to have another undefeated regular season for another BCS chance after losing to Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl last season.
Boise State is still third in the AP poll after its comeback 33-30 victory over then-No. 10 Virginia Tech on Monday night. The Broncos are the only team from a league without an automatic BCS bid ranked higher than TCU.
Patterson insists he wasn't rooting against Boise State, which next year is moving to the Mountain West Conference.
"I had to root for Boise," Patterson said. "They're going to come in the conference. You had to root for Boise (even though) they could hurt us."
TCU and Boise State will face each other during the regular season each year once the Broncos are part of the MWC.
"I'm excited about it. We get a chance to play them every year," Patterson said. "I'd rather have somebody that I get a chance to play on the field, and control my own destiny, than somebody that I'm going to compete with in the polls."
First practice for UTSA's new program postponed
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The first practice for UTSA's new football program has been postponed by heavy rains from Tropical Storm Hermine.
Former Miami coach Larry Coker was to lead 69 players in the inaugural workout Tuesday afternoon. Instead, the team will practice Wednesday.
UTSA will make its football debut next year under Coker, who won a BCS championship at Miami in 2001. The team will practice about four times a week through Nov. 18, with a few scrimmages sprinkled in.
Hermine was expected to dump up to a foot of rain in parts of Texas on Tuesday after making landfall in northern Mexico late Monday.
LSU, Oregon to play in 2011 Cowboys Classic
ARLINGTON (AP) — Oregon and LSU will play at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington in the opening weekend of the 2011 season.
The Sept. 3 prime-time matchup was announced Tuesday, three days after fourth-ranked TCU beat then-No. 24 Oregon State 30-21 in the 2010 Cowboys Classic at the $1.2 billion home of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys.
Seventh-ranked Oregon and No. 19 LSU haven't played each other since 1977. LSU has won two of the previous three meetings in the series.
LSU defeated North Carolina 30-24 in its season opener last Saturday at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. Oregon defeated New Mexico 72-0.
Big 12
Stoops brothers prepare for unwanted reunion
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — Bob and the older Stoops brothers used to get littlest brother Mark jumping on the bed and then swat at him with pillowcases, trying to take his legs out from under him. They'd coax him onto the high dive at the pool, getting him to do backflips and other acrobatics he probably shouldn't have been doing at age 5.
Looking back, the Oklahoma coach can revel in the memories from a childhood spent sharing the same bedroom — and sometimes even the same bed — at their Ohio home. So, why spoil it by going against one of his brothers in what could be an elimination game?
Bob Stoops will lead his 10th-ranked Sooners (1-0) against No. 17 Florida State (1-0) on Saturday, with brother Mark in his first year as the defensive coordinator for the Seminoles. It'll be a bit of a reunion with the Stoops' sisters and their mother coming to Norman, but an unwanted one at that.
"You don't really want to play your brother," Bob Stoops said Tuesday. "You want to play your brother in a championship game because not only does someone lose, someone's going to win a championship, too. To me, that's the only time you're really looking to do it."
Bob and Mark were never adversaries growing up in Youngstown, Ohio, or as they followed similar paths to becoming coaches in major college football. Like Bob — and Mike, the head coach at Arizona — before him, Mark played defensive back at Iowa before going into coaching. And all three became defensive-minded coaches.
Bob and Mike worked together under Bill Snyder at Kansas State, and then on the staff at Oklahoma after Bob was hired as the head coach. When Mike was picked to lead Arizona's program, he brought in Mark as his defensive coordinator.
"There's not much of a rivalry there," Mark Stoops said. "We all root for one another. In this day and age ... the pressure that we're under and the jobs that we have to do, the last thing that we need to do is jab each other."
There was plenty of jabbing — or at least roughhousing — that went on in their childhood. Bob says Mark "was like our toy, and he'd do anything" the older brothers put him up to.
"We were always scuffling or in something, especially me," said Bob, the second-oldest Stoops brother and almost seven years older than Mark. "But Mark was too young. He couldn't be in the middle of it. There wasn't anybody fighting him.
"So, pretty much, we'd throw him around the room, and he was in the hospital getting stitches about every other week — in fun ways."
That fun included Mark smacking his head when he'd get walloped off the bed in the room the four brothers shared. They'd take turns with who'd get the two twin beds and who had to share the double bed in the room. Their parents got the one of the other two bedrooms in the house, and the Stoops sisters shared the last one.
It led to a naturally close bond in the clan, with all four brothers following father Ron into coaching. Ron Jr., the oldest Stoops brother, was hired as an assistant secondary coach at Youngstown State in January. Before that, he had worked for nine years as a defensive coordinator at Cardinal Mooney High School, where his father had been a coach.
"To me, there's no rivalry because we all want to see the other guy do better," Bob said. "Growing up, the only rivalry is if you got on each other's nerves, there would be a fight break out."
And, of course, there was football.
Bob still gets a kick out of the memory of Mark's first games after he'd spent so much time following the older Stoops brothers around to practices.
"He was like Dick Butkus and Walter Payton out there," Bob said. "He played middle linebacker and he'd kill everybody. He'd play running back and he had all the moves as a young guy."
Bob and Mark spoke briefly on the phone Monday, but just about basic feelings from each team's opening victory. Then, they broke it off. After all, they'll be seeing each other soon, wishing they could both come out as winners.
"How we all were is we all wanted to see the other guy do better than us," Bob said. "I think most brothers are that way."
-- Jeff Latzke
Neb defense buys in to Pelini's goal of perfection
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — There's no pleasing Bo Pelini.
So when Alonzo Whaley was reminded Tuesday about the Nebraska coach's lambasting of the defense a few minutes after a 39-point victory — "an absolute embarrassment," Pelini called it — Whaley just shrugged.
"I wouldn't say it hurt because it's the truth," Whaley said. "We have a lot to fix. They had almost 300 total yards. Think about the defense last year. We rarely gave up that many yards. He's trying to get a point across: 'Don't think you've arrived, don't think you're a good defense.'"
The sixth-ranked Cornhuskers (1-0), who host Idaho (1-0) on Saturday, were breaking in four new starters during the 49-10 win over Western Kentucky over the weekend. Among them were Whaley and Lavonte David, who took over for injured linebackers Will Compton and Sean Fisher.
Whaley was pressed into calling the defensive signals after Compton went down with a foot injury Thursday. David called the signals when the Huskers took Whaley off the field in exchange for an extra defensive back in their dime package.
There were clearly communication problems. There were times players weren't lined up properly and the secondary and front seven were confused about their assignments.
"Linebackers are the leaders of the defense, and you have to know everybody's assignment," David said. "It's a big responsibility."
With Compton out two days before the opener, Pelini said, problems were predictable. Plus, Pelini said he probably overloaded his charges with contingencies because he didn't know what Western Kentucky's new coaching staff would throw at the Huskers offensively.
But, "it doesn't change our expectations going in and it doesn't change our standards," Pelini said.
The Huskers allowed WKU's Bobby Rainey to rush for a career-high 155 yards, including a 46-yard burst, and the Hilltoppers finished with 299 total yards. WKU generated 219 yards in the second half.
"Those 10 points came off our mistakes, and if we didn't make them, we could have had a shutout," tackle Jared Crick said. "If we play perfection snap to snap we can blank any team."
In last year's opener, Florida Atlantic generated 358 yards, and that was with Ndamukong Suh leading what would become one of the nation's top defenses.
"If you look at my history, our style of defense, you get better as you go on and have more time together," Pelini said. "I've been here before. I'm not real concerned. I'll be concerned if I'm saying this four or five weeks from now, but I don't think that'll be the case."
And so the Huskers' pursuit of perfection continues.
The coaching legend John Wooden once said, "Perfection is an impossibility but striving for perfection is not." Pelini offered his take on the matter when he met with his linebackers before Saturday's game.
"They say you shouldn't coach perfection because it's a road to failure, because nobody is perfect. The people who say that are losers," Pelini said, according to Whaley.
No one is asked to do more in the Nebraska defense than Whaley and David. They not only must take care of their own responsibilities, they must make sure the secondary and front seven are working in sync.
And they also must master nuances that the casual observer wouldn't notice.
"We're in a pro-style defense," Whaley said. "I watch other linebackers on Saturdays, and their footwork is horrible, and they don't get off blocks. I wonder what coach Pelini would do with them. It's a lot harder to play here than at other schools, I would guess.
"He's an old linebackers coach. He coaches perfection every single play. There's no play that he won't be on you critiquing something. There's nothing you can't do too well."
-- Eric Olson
Kansas holding off on QB change
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Coach Turner Gill, coming off one of the most embarrassing losses Kansas has had in decades, said Tuesday he'll wait before making a decision at quarterback.
Kale Pick, last year's backup, got the start in the season opener. But he was benched in the fourth quarter in favor of Jordan Webb as North Dakota State handed Kansas a shocking 6-3 loss that brought boos raining down on Gill's inaugural game as head coach.
The Jayhawks host No. 15 Georgia Tech on Saturday. They have lost eight in a row going back to last year's seven-game losing streak.
Pick and Webb were both ineffective against North Dakota State, which was picked no higher than sixth in the Missouri Valley Conference and held the Jayhawks to just three points.
Offensive coordinator Chuck Long said the Jayhawks were still trying to decide on several offensive positions. Whoever settles in at quarterback will be replacing the most prolific quarterback in team history in Todd Reesing. Also gone are Dezmon Briscoe and Kerry Meier, the two most productive wide receivers Kansas ever had.
"We're not set in stone with every position yet," said Long. "That's the bottom line with our offense. We don't have a decisive 11 yet. We're still working toward chemistry. It may take a little time to get to that point."
Gill, Long and the rest of the staff all arrived last winter after Mark Mangino resigned amid accusations that he mistreated his players.
Getting a good handle on the players' strengths and weaknesses is taking a while.
"Now we have a better picture based on game one. Each game will give us that," Long said.
Against North Dakota State, Pick was 13 for 22 for 138 yards, with one interception. Web was 6 of 11 for 59 yards.
"The quarterback position didn't have a great game," said Long. "We made our share of mistakes. There were some positives there, too. There are some examples of them standing in the pocket and taking some hits and keeping their concentration down the field which I thought was pretty impressive for young quarterbacks. For brand new quarterbacks, that was pretty impressive."
-- Doug Tucker
Related Story
Wyo. tries to maintain routine after player death
LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) — Wyoming coach Dave Christensen says his team is trying to maintain its normal routine to help players cope with the death of a teammate in a car accident and prepare for the Cowboys' game against No. 5 Texas.
"We think it will help the kids get their mind on something different at different points of time throughout the day," Christensen said Tuesday during the Mountain West Conference's regular coach's conference call. "And we'll take it one day at a time. There's not a manual on how to do these things."
The team held its regularly scheduled position meetings and practices on Tuesday in preparation for its game Saturday at Texas.
"I thought we had a physical practice, a pretty spirited practice, and it was good the way that they came out and competed today," Christensen said Tuesday evening. "I think that they had an opportunity to take two, two-and-a-half hours to get their minds on something else. I thought they performed well today."
Freshman linebacker Ruben Narcisse, 19, of Miami, died in the wreck Monday after he and several other UW teammates visited friends in Fort Collins, Colo., over the weekend.
"Just a great young man, had a smile on his face all the time," Christensen said of Narcisse, who preferred to be called Rube.
One player remained hospitalized Tuesday, while two others were treated and released. Christensen said wide receiver Christian Morgan, 18, of Aurora, Colo., had surgery on his elbow and may be released Wednesday.
The Colorado Highway Patrol says the wreck occurred at about 5:30 a.m. Monday when the players' pickup drifted off U.S. 287 south of the Wyoming state line.
Narcisse was a passenger in the back seat of a vehicle driven by freshman cornerback Trey Fox, 19, of Glenwood Springs, Colo., the patrol said. Another passenger was redshirt freshman linebacker J.J. Quinlan, 19, of Everett, Wash.
Police said it appeared Fox fell asleep and that alcohol and drugs weren't believed to be factors.
None of the four played in Wyoming's 28-20 win over Southern Utah on Saturday.
Christensen said the team plans to wear a helmet decal with Narcisse's initials, and one member of the team will wear Narcisse's No. 12 jersey each game the rest of the season.
Cowboy senior wide receiver David Leonard said it will mean a lot to have Narcisse's jersey on the field.
"It's one of those things where we can't forget what kind of a player and person that he was and so going out and honoring him like that, we just know that when you have his number on, you better play with a lot of heart and enthusiasm because that's what he brought," Leonard said.
Leonard and others talked of being a family and sticking together, something Christensen said was important.
"You know kids are fragile. They're invincible at this age, they think, and how they react to the situation is yet to be seen," the coach said.
The highway on which the accident occurred was the same road where eight UW track and cross country athletes died in a collision with a pickup driven by a drunken driver, who was a member of the UW rodeo team, on Sept. 16, 2001.
"I know that road has claimed a number of lives and that it's been a very tragic road, but in this situation I guess tragedy could have struck if they had taken (Interstate) 80 up also," Christensen said.
Nina McConigley, who taught freshman English, said Narcisse was one of 16 students in her class. She said he sat in the front row, was "very talkative" and was proud of being from Miami.
"He did have a big personality and in a class that small, it's just ... he'll be missed," McConigley said.
-- Bob Moen
