Before we move on to discussing the upcoming game at Clemson, I thought I'd take one last look-back at the Texas State game and share a few thoughts I had:
-Andy Dalton and Coach Patterson both reached pretty big milestones on Saturday. Dalton became the third TCU quarterback to reach 5,000 career passing yards, and Patterson recorded his 75th career victory, moving him past Abe Martin into 2nd place on the school's all-time list. He's now 34 wins shy of tying Dutch Meyer (109 wins) for 1st place.
-As much of a man-beast as Jerry Hughes has been so far with 4.5 sacks through two games, Joseph Turner might be playing even better right now. His game against Texas State was even more impressive than his statline (129 yards, 3 TDs on just 13 carries)- he looks quicker than he ever has and is constantly adding 2, 3, 5 extra yards at the end of runs with 2nd- and 3rd-efforts. Basically, he looks like Marion Barber out there.
-Kelly Griffin is back. After somewhat of a sophomore slump last year, #69 is showing that he's the kind of anchor DT that the Frogs need. Cory Grant has been pretty effective at shutting down opponents' running games, too, and true freshman D.J. "Rhino" Yendrey has also been pretty impressive, despite being quite undersized.
-TCU has to be one of the best programs in the country for walk-on's. Former walk-on's making a big impact Saturday included receivers Bart Johnson and Curtis Clay, starting left guard Kyle Dooley and starting strong safety Tyler Lutrell. Ryan Christian, another former walk-on, didn't have a big game against Texas State but has had big ones in the past.
-After allowing a few big plays against both Texas State and Virginia, I think the secondary is officially a "concern" at this point. The big plays against UVA were in garbage time and there's a good chance they were overlooking Texas State. That's all of the excuse-making there'll be, though- if this trend continues, this concern might become a "weakness".
-I was pleased with the crowd. 35,249 for a game against a I-AA school isn't bad at all. That's just about what TCU got for the '07 home opener against Baylor and just about 1,000 less than the BYU game last year. Sure, it was helped by a good amount of TSU fans and a few FWISD school groups sitting in the upper deck, but the student section was as packed as I've seen it in a while. Hopefully there'll be another good-sized and vocal crowd for the SMU game in two weeks.
