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TCU coach Gary Patterson isn't going to let his fourth-ranked Horned Frogs get too much satisfaction out of a dominating victory.
''That's what you're supposed to do to a I-AA team,'' Patterson said after a 62-7 victory over FCS team Tennessee Tech. ''We made too many mistakes. It doesn't matter what the score is. ... Too many holdings, too many jumps, too many false formations, too many wrong things.''
Jeremy Kerley had a 46-yard punt return wiped out by a roughing the punter penalty that gave the ball back to the Golden Eagles. Then his 54-yard kickoff return after Tennessee Tech's only touchdown was brought back to the TCU 10 after an illegal block.
A 37-yard pass to the 2 right after a Tennessee Tech fumble was nullified by a holding penalty, the third flag against the Horned Frogs (2-0) in a span of six offensive snaps in their home opener Saturday night.
''We weren't clean, we weren't fluent on everything that we were doing offensively,'' quarterback Andy Dalton said. ''That's just something we've got to go in and fix.''
TCU still gained 452 total yards, 302 more than Tennessee Tech (0-2), and had its highest-scoring game since a 67-7 victory in the 2008 home opener against Stephen F. Austin, another FCS team.
''I'm not enjoying this game at all,'' Patterson said. ''It's time to move forward.''
TCU's next two games are against former Southwest Conference rivals Baylor (2-0) and SMU before getting into Mountain West Conference play.
The Frogs remained unchanged Sunday in the new AP poll behind No. 3 Boise State, the other highly ranked team from a conference without an automatic BCS bid.
A week after a season-opening 30-21 victory over No. 25 Oregon State in a game when style points weren't important, the Frogs had the kind of overwhelming victory they need to maintain their lofty ranking and keep their chance of becoming a two-time BCS buster.
Still, Patterson apologized for scoring more than 60 points against Tennessee Tech, the school where he got his master's degree while a graduate assistant from 1983-85.
But TCU scored touchdowns after all five Tennessee Tech turnovers, and wasn't even trying to score late. There were three touchdowns in the fourth quarter without throwing, the last coming with 4 minutes left on a 16-yard run by Ryan Hightower, a fifth-year fullback appearing in only his fourth career game.
''We were just running a fullback play to move it a couple of yards,'' Patterson said. ''He cuts back and nobody's there, and he scores a touchdown.''
Tennessee Tech was the only FCS team to open the season against consecutive Top 25 opponents, and lost by a combined 106-10 to No. 12 Arkansas and TCU. The Golden Eagles play their home opener Thursday night against Lane College.
''It won't be easy at all. We are very tired. We have to get our heads up and get back,'' coach Watson Brown said. ''We get to play an in-state school that wants a piece of us. The things that happen in games like this is that you learn what your shortcomings are. We learned what those are after the last two weeks.''
