Sometime Saturday night after TCU breaks in the newly renovated Amon G. Carter Stadium with what's expected to be a victory over Grambling State, head coach Gary Patterson will have a minute or two to reflect on a big milestone.
He won't take long.
Patterson comes into the 2012 season tied with Dutch Meyer at TCU's all-time winningest head coach with 109 victories. Patterson, who is one of eight coaches with at least 100 wins at their school, figures to get No. 110 Saturday night.
While it's an impressive milestone, it's not something Patterson plans to dwell on.
"You don't want to downplay it at all but as well all know, we have a lot of work to do ahead of us," Patterson said. "It's really kind of ironic it. You have a chance to break the record plus you're also christening a new stadium, going into a new conference. There are so many new things that are going to happen this week. You've just got to keep your head down."
That's the plan for Patterson and the Frogs this weekend. There are plenty of chances to get distracted. The Frogs are debuting in the Big 12. The stadium, which had more than $160 million in renovations done on it, will also see its first action.
Maybe it's a good thing the Frogs were one of just a handful of teams that had a bye last weekend. Grambling State, which is coached by former Washington Redskins quarterback Doug Williams, lost a 22-21 decision to Alcorn State last weekend.
"I think every coach in the country if you tell them they have an extra week to keep trying to get better would take it," said Patterson. "Obviously you've got to play your first game to see what you've got to do to get better. One of the things we've got to work on is everybody else has got a ballgame, saw what they needed to do, how they handle game time, especially with a young football team like we have. We tried to do that as much as we could. It's time to play a ballgame."
The Frogs used the extra time to go through a mock game and also watch some future opponents. That should be helpful especially as the Big 12 opened the season by going 9-0 in the first week.
"We're in the office getting ready for what we've got to do for Grambling and then people down the road," Patterson said. "We were able to do, because of this, to be able to watch everybody on tape for the first six or seven ballgames. We watched at least a half, kind of see what they're doing. Obviously there are a lot of good football teams ahead of us."
