TCU quarterback Trevone Boykin plans to have surgery to repair a fractured bone in his left, non-throwing wrist the first week of April, head coach Gary Patterson said Wednesday.
He suffered the injury last season but played with a soft cast late in the season. TCU begins spring practice on Saturday and Boykin will participate, but he will sit out the final three of 15 spring practices after undergoing the procedure.
He's expected to return in about five weeks and will be 100 percent in time for voluntary summer workouts.
Boykin, a senior from Mesquite, Texas, was named the Big 12's Offensive Player of the Year in 2014 and finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting.
Defensive end Mike Tuaua and offensive tackle Halapoulivaati Vaitai will both miss all of spring after undergoing shoulder surgeries, Patterson said. Tuaua missed the Peach Bowl with the injury.
Patterson added that Tuaua could have played, but he elected to sit him to benefit his long-term health.
Patterson met with a small group of reporters for nearly two hours on Wednesday. A few other notes from the session:
• Patterson never considered an outside hire to replace retiring defensive coordinator Dick Bumpas, who Patterson sensed in the middle of last season might retire. He announced the promotion of safeties coach Chad Glasgow and linebackers coach Demontie Cross to co-defensive coordinators on Wednesday. "It was an easy transition for us," he said. Bumpas' first post-retirement stop? Disneyland. "He likes that fishing rod," Patterson said. "It was time. ... TCU's better because he was here."
• Patterson said every coach on TCU's staff received a job offer after the Horned Frogs' 12-1 season that included a share of the Big 12 title and a victory in the Peach Bowl. Kenny Perry, who coached cornerbacks in 2014, joined David Beaty's staff at Kansas as co-defensive coordinator and cornerbacks coach.
• Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin and his father, Dallas Cowboys assistant coach Monte Kiffin, were on TCU's campus on Wednesday. Both were among a handful of coaches who visited the campus for an exchange of ideas on Wednesday. Patterson said when TCU was in the Mountain West, he rarely limited who he invited inside the facility, but has become more selective since joining the ranks of major conference programs.
• Patterson said he told Iowa State coach Paul Rhoads before kickoff of the Frogs' 55-3 win on the final Saturday of the regular season that TCU would be excluded from the playoff, regardless of the game's result. "He looked at me like I was crazy," Patterson said. Patterson said both Baylor and Ohio State were deserving of playoff bids, but he had decided the night before how to handle the snub after predicting it was coming. "I think we got more done by not saying anything."
• On reports of LB Paul Dawson's "character concerns" that have hurt his NFL stock: "Is he a knucklehead, was he late, one of those guys? I just think that's his personality. Do I think he's a bad person, no. Do I think he's a good player, yes. Do I think he'll lose a lot of money in the NFL in fines if he doesn't change a couple of those ways? Yes." Patterson cited an example of Dawson showing up for a team event before the Peach Bowl in a white polo shirt when the team was supposed to be wearing black polos. "That's Paul," Patterson said. "Him and I have a good relationship."
• On former TCU players posting poor 40 and agility times at the NFL combine: "If the guys I had at the combine would have worked out here, they would have ran the way they were supposed to run," said Patterson, adding he was "not happy" they had spent money on training and gotten subpar results.
• On the prospect of freshman ineligibility: "They want us to play all these games with 60 scholarship players? I'll take it with 10 more scholarships, but you can't talk out of both sides of your mouth," he said, referencing college football's recent expansion to a 12-game season, plus league title games and a four-team playoff while trying to make the game safer for players and mulling the idea of thinning rosters. TCU played 17 true freshman in 2012, the program's first season as a member of the Big 12.
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