UConn Will Be Without WR Michael Smith For the 2011 Season

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When a first year head coach takes over a team there are certain expectations that comes along with it. Certainly one of those is not losing your leading wide receiver for the entire 2011 season.

According to Desmond Carter of the Hartford Courant, UConn head coach Paul Pasqualoni confirms wide receiver Michael Smith will miss the entire upcoming season due to being declared academically ineligible.

That's a big blow to the Huskies as Smith led the team in catches (46) and yards (615) in 2010.


Mark Mirko/Hartford Courant

"Michael will be, obviously in the program," Pasqualoni told Carter. "He will be in practice each day. He just will not participate in games. I do think this is a year that he can use to improve himself all the way around and then still have a final year of eligibility."

Smith, at 6-foot-2 and 202 pounds, put up solid numbers as a junior so his senior season could have been even bigger.

Returning senior Kashif Moore, who led the team in receiving touchdowns (4), will need to be the man who steps up in Smith's absence. Moore finished the 2010 season with 452 receiving yards and four touchdowns.

What Keeps Gary Patterson at TCU?

There are a few head coaches in college football who remain at their current jobs when most of wonder what keeps them from moving to a big time, BCS school. One of those is TCU head coach, Gary Patterson.

Like Kyle Whittingham of Utah and Chris Petersen of Boise State, Patterson has been one name who seems to be talked about during each and every college football off season. With every job opening, Patterson's name comes up and he becomes one of the hottest rumors on the internet.

But no sooner do these rumors come up, TCU and it's football coach are quick to make sure no one throws gas on the fire. They make it clear TCU is the place for him and it's where he is going to remain.

The question everyone seems to ask is, what keeps him with the Horned Frogs? Why stay at a school in the Mountain West Conference and not take a higher paying job in a big time BCS conference which would give him a chance at a national championship?

"There's been a lot of people in college football who left for where they think the grass is greener," TCU athletic director Chris Del Conte told ESPN's Pat Forde back in December of last year. "They're chasing ghosts. For every Urban Meyer, there's nine guys that caught the train on the way down and say, 'I should have never left.'

Patterson is someone who has become well known not only in the Fort Worth, Texas area but around every circle of college football. Del Conte even argues Patterson could very well become TCU's version of Penn State's Joe Paterno.

"He is that guy for us who can become a JoePa. Everyone knows him -- his strengths and his weaknesses, he told Forde. "Gary's strength is that he is true to himself -- honest, super intense, genuine. … It's him against the world to prove, 'Hey, I am a dang good coach.'"

Del Conte could not be more right. His reputation and coaching styles has led to the kind of recruits he has been able to bring in to the small school on the west side of the metroplex. Some would say TCU shouldn't be able to recruit against the likes of Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and the like but it seems the Horned Frogs are doing just fine.

All of Patterson's efforts came together during the 2010 season. The leadership of quarterback, Andy Dalton, and their shutdown defense led to the program's first ever birth into the granddaddy of them all--The Rose Bowl.

While a victory over the Wisconsin Badgers was sweet, it was just another notch in the belt for TCU's head coach. It was certainly a victory which put Patterson and his program on the national map. So much so that it allowed the university to begin, and finish, negotiations with the Big East Conference to make them the newest member as well as becoming a BCS conference team.

All of his accomplishments as well as the accomplishments of the teams he is able to put together have made the name, Gary Patterson, an even bigger name around the college football landscape. He has proved year in and year out that he is more than happy being the head coach of Texas Christian University and has no plans of being anywhere else.

You have to respect a coach who isn't out for a bigger pay day and a bigger program. Patterson is not the kind of guy who wants to build up his name at one place just to move on.

They have been loyal to him and he has return that loyalty a few times over. He is beloved among the fans and the players who have played for him and those who continue to suit up in TCU colors.

While they may not be the biggest school in college football or one of the more respected, Gary Patterson will continue to bring in some of the best recruits in college football and will continue to make noise on the national stage from one year to the next.

There is no doubt Patterson will continue to get interest from every school that has a job opening, it will not take long for them to realize they will not have enough to be able to pry him away.

Now that TCU will become the newest BCS member after the 2011 football season, it will give Patterson the opportunity to recruit even better players and, for the first time, make a legitimate run at the BCS National Championship.


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TCU's Move to the Big East Was the Right Move at the Right Time

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When TCU head coach Gary Patterson saw the writing on the wall after Utah departed and BYU was in the middle of considerations to follow them out the door, it seemed to him that there was no other decision to make. They needed to look for a way out of the Mountain West Conference which was quickly becoming the old version of the Western Athletic Conference.

Most of the talk shows in the Dallas/Ft Worth area had callers wondering why the Big 12 hadn't come calling. The answer to that was simple. There wasn't enough money in it for the conference to consider them. It's not that the Horned Frogs wouldn't have fit in and been better than schools like Baylor, Kansas, and Kansas State to name a few, at least in football. The conference wouldn't see enough revenue coming in from the school, especially in the television ratings.

There's no doubt there are some hardcore TCU fans in the area but let's not kid ourselves, this is a state ruled by either the Texas Longhorns or the Oklahoma Sooners. No offense to the Horned Frogs, you just don't get top billing around here.

But, that didn't mean they didn't need to make a decision about their future. Especially if they didn't want to get stuck in the same old rut they had been in over the past few years. Even though Boise State was coming in, TCU still knew that the MWC receiving an automatic BCS bid was still going to be close to impossible.

That's when a new conference came calling, one that Patterson and the university couldn't ignore. It meant a move to a conference east of the plain states and it meant a whole new realm of possibilities for each of the athletic programs.

The conference that came calling was the Big East and TCU wasted no time in accepting the invitation. It left the MWC stunned and unable to recover no matter what kind of moves they made.

Fresno State, Nevada and Hawaii were brought in but they knew the loss of Utah, BYU and now TCU was more than they would be able to recover from. They had built another version of the WAC, the same conference that split apart almost 12 years ago.

For those of you who blame them for leaving you might want to ask Boise State if they would have re-thought their decision about jumping to the MWC if they had known TCU was about to leave. My guess is, they would have held out for a better offer. Maybe they would have gotten the Big East offer that TCU received or possibly gotten an invite as well.

The Horned Frogs made a move that was beneficial to their university at the exact right time. They knocked down half of their football stadium and plan to rebuild it in time for the 2011 college football season. The stadium, when finished, will hold 40,000 fans and according to an article from CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd the weight room will go from 8,000 square feet up to 20,000 square feet.

Not a bad piece of real estate, right?

The changes being made at TCU, on top of their big Rose Bowl win over Wisconsin this past January, has put the Horned Frogs on the map when it comes to some of the top recruits in the country. After signing day had concluded, the Horned Frogs' recruiting class was ranked among the top 25 in the nation.

Though they lost 14 starters from last season, this wasn't a rebuilding class for TCU, this was a reloading class that will keep them as a dangerous team in college football for a long time to come.

Patterson has had his chance to walk away from the school. He's had job offers from other universities that have sought to bring him on and accomplish the same kind of success that he's built at TCU.

Unfortunately for them, as well as other schools who have gone after guys like Boise State's Chris Petersen and Utah's Kyle Whittingham, Patterson has stayed loyal to Texas Christian University. Though they've been known as just another small school in north Texas, he's built the name into so much more.

Now they're the school that won the Rose Bowl in their first ever appearance in the 'Grandaddy of Them All,' and the school that knocked off would be Big Ten powerhouse, Wisconsin.

It's no small feat to be sure but the head football coach at that small little school in Fort Worth uses the naysayers to get his players jacked up for each and every game on their schedule. They proved that going on the road to Utah who was ranked in the top five in the nation. They didn't beat Utah, the humiliated them on their home field in front of their home fans.

It was the start of what become a tremendous season for the Horned Frogs. One not to be forgotten.

But for those that think this team is a one-hit wonder, you might want to think again. As long as Gary Patterson is the head coach at TCU, this program is going to be hanging around the BCS rankings for a long time.

You better get used to that now, because it's not changing any time soon.


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The Mountain West Screwing TCU is Nothing But Sour Grapes

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The TCU Horned Frogs, fresh off a big win in the Rose Bowl over the Wisconsin Badgers, will be playing their final season in the Mountain West Conference before they become the newest members of the Big East Conference.

While the Utah Utes and BYU Cougars will no longer be members of the Mountain West, a newcomer will join the fray when the 2011 season gets underway in just over seven months.

Boise State.

The Broncos made their decision to jump ship before BYU's decision to go independent became official and long before TCU accepted an invitation from the Big East to become a member of their conference. Had they known these moves were coming, I'm not sure the Broncos would have made the move so quickly. They believed they had a shot at an automatic BCS bid in the future. Now they're not so sure that bid will ever come.

However, the season will roll on and it will feature a conference game between two mid-majors who spent most of the 2010 season making college football headlines week in and week out. Neither team gave any ground to those around them and both refused to lose.

As the season was winding down it looked as if the BCS was going to have to make arguably their toughest decision since they came into existence. Putting both schools into a BCS bowl game.

Fortunately, or unfortunately for us BCS haters, Boise State fell victim to the Nevada Wolfpack.and allowed the BCS to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

However, TCU remained unbeaten which earned them the Rose Bowl bid.

Now, with the Texas Christian University heading for greener pastures after the 2011 college football season, they could end up losing their home game against Boise State. To no one's surprise, the university isn't at all happy with that possibility.

Neither am I.

I've debated this topic with friends as well as through the Twitterverse earlier this morning. I'm surprised at how many people are ok with taking the home game away from TCU and handing it to Boise State. Yes, I said handing it to them. What would you call it?

While MWC commissioner Craig Thompson says most of the athletic directors within the conference are ok with this decision, TCU won't be the only team affected. If the game is moved, Air Force, San Diego State, Wyoming or New Mexico will also be forced to move their "home" game against the Horned Frogs.

This feels too much like sour grapes from the MWC. Not only are they going to vote on handing a home game to Boise State but TCU will not be able to have a say in the decision because they are a lame duck university.

For those that argued this decision to move the game is only because TCU is jumping ship I have this question to pose to you. Why didn't they take home games away from Utah or BYU in their final season?

The answer to that is simple. This has more to do with doing everything the Mountain West can do to make Boise State look good than trying to screw TCU. If this was really about being upset that TCU is taking the prettier girl to the prom, they would have screwed over the aforementioned two schools for the same reason.

Let's take this a step further. Not only is the MWC "taking their ball and going home" but apparently they are too afraid the Broncos couldn't win this game on the road. They are trying to make absolutely sure they stack the deck in Boise State's favor.

This is a bad move on several levels. It doesn't matter that one school is leaving while another one is coming in. It's a move that shouldn't be made by them, the Western Athletic Conference, or any other conference for that matter.

Thompson is trying to save face by hyping up their new addition. They have a new toy and they want to show it off.

The ultimate backfire in this story will be watching TCU go to Boise and come away with a win. If that scenario happens it will be the Horned Frogs that get the last laugh. Especially if they run the table and make it back to another BCS bowl.

This is a bad move for the Mountain West no matter how you look at it. It has the potential to go very wrong and they don't need any more bad press.

Let's face it, they already look like the old version of the WAC minus BYU and Utah. Screwing your best program in 2010 just makes you look that much more foolish.

TCU Headed to the Big East Conference

Congratulations TCU, you got exactly what you wanted.

According to Brett McMurphy of AOL Fanhouse, Texas Christian University has officially accepted an invitation to join the Big East Conference during the 2012-2013 seasons, not just in football but in all sports.

This has been speculated for some time that the Horned Frogs wanted to join an automatic qualifying conference since all the conference expansion began a few months ago. There had been rumors that the Big East was interested but there were also rumors that they were interested in Conference USA as well.

After Utah left the Mountain West Conference for the PAC-10 and BYU left for independence, they addition Boise State, Fresno State, Nevada, and possibly Hawaii, the rumors still never ceased that TCU wanted out. They still knew that even though the conference had added these three or possibly four teams, they were still not in the spotlight they wanted to be.

Even being in a different conference this season kept them in the shadow of one team that can't quite seem to get enough attention, Boise State.

Now, what used to be the top of the MWC with Utah, BYU, and TCU, will now look like the top of the Western Athletic Conference with Boise State, Nevada, and either Hawaii or Fresno State. Not exactly what the commissioner of the MWC was hoping for when he brought Boise State on board.

 

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The Horned Frogs will now have a shot at an automatic BCS bid, something other small schools would kill for. Not only will this give the school a better shot at a bigger bowl game, but it will do wonders for their recruiting.

While Boise State does get a lot of the national attention now, they won't have that state alone for long. The Big East will have a new star in the making. If Gary Patterson remains and continues to bring the kind of product he has over the last few years, we could see more of TCU in the BCS picture for years to come.
What that means to the Mountain West is trying to find one more name to add to the top of their list, unless they sent the invitation to the University of Hawaii knowing full well that the Horned Frogs were on their way out.

If Hawaii isn't the name that is replacing TCU, the one name that could make the rounds in the expansion rumor mill is the University of Houston.

They've long been rumored as a team that the Mountain West could have interest in though there may be other names as well.

For now, Gary Patterson and Texas Christian University are well on their way to becoming one of the best small schools in the country. They've already made noise over the last few seasons, but now being in an automatic qualifying conference could not only bring success to their football program but it could also do wonders for their other sports as well.

The Mountain West took a huge hit today. They're going to need to regroup and come up with a way to save face.

If not, they'll look no better than Karl Benson and the WAC. That in itself, is reason enough to do something about it.