KillerFrogs writer Brett Gibbons reacts to the shocking Colorado upset over TCU – what went wrong? What went well? Also breaking down TCU's Week 2 opponent: Nicholls.
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00:00 Welcome back to the Killer Frogs Killer Minute, a Fan Nation College football podcast brought to you weekly by KillerFrogs.com.
00:09 I am Brett Gibbons and I'm joined by myself today. I'm doing a solo podcast, a quick one ahead of the TCU vs. Nichols game.
00:19 Not terribly much to talk about on that front, but we will get to it.
00:23 I also wanted to talk a little bit about Colorado. Hopefully it doesn't delve too much into just a vent session, but I do want to go over what we watched.
00:33 Wasn't great, but there is some good to it that we will get to.
00:38 I do want to start with reviewing that game.
00:42 TCU, best to buy Colorado. It was on national television. Something like 7 million people watched the game. We all saw it.
00:49 Giving up 45 points in Deion Sanders' debut.
00:54 Now, offensively, there was actually some good stuff there.
00:58 TCU scored 42 points. However, I didn't think Chandler Morris really looked all that confident.
01:04 The first interception that he threw in the end zone, real bad. Never saw the defender, just left it out over the middle and it was pretty easily picked off.
01:13 That may have been the first inkling that TCU may be in trouble in this game.
01:19 The second interception wasn't really his fault. It was just a really, really great play by Travis Hunter, who by all accounts was the best player on the field.
01:29 On Saturday, I don't think there's really any debating that.
01:32 It was a terrific play by him. A jump that a small handful of defensive backs are even going to make in the country.
01:41 But it was an abysmal decision to throw the ball instead of running at that point.
01:45 TCU was doing a great job running the football. They were controlling the line of scrimmage all game.
01:53 Even though Colorado had a couple of goal line stands where they got some push up front, TCU dominated the line of scrimmage.
02:00 And the fact that they lined up to throw the ball instead of run it, pretty inexcusable.
02:06 Kendo Bryles, his first impression as TCU's offensive coordinator, I thought it was terrible.
02:14 I thought he did a terrible job, honestly on both sides of the ball, but we'll talk about defense here soon.
02:21 Offensively, I thought the game plan had no rhyme or reason to it.
02:25 It was almost like the offensive coordinator needed to call all the plays in his bag.
02:29 For those who are former players, former coaches, I coached freshman football, you know that the offensive coaches always have to break out their toys.
02:39 They can't just do what works over and over and over again. That gets boring after a while.
02:44 So we saw Bryles break out some of those other plays.
02:48 To be honest, most of the time if you're running, this is getting kind of in the weeds, but if you're running what's called a rail route,
02:54 or a wheel route out of the backfield from the running back, which is what it was, it's a good play call.
02:59 And that's usually a completion, but throwing in the direction of Travis Hunter didn't make any sense to me.
03:04 When TCU ran the ball, they did really well.
03:07 They had 7.1 yards per rush attempt, 262 yards on the ground in total.
03:13 Running backs generated 6.6 yards per rush attempt.
03:18 So every time we were getting that push up front from the offensive line, but running backs themselves, Imani Bailey mostly,
03:24 was getting an extra 6.6 yards per carry.
03:27 Why you don't line the ball up and run it more truly is a mystery to me.
03:32 Especially when you're at the goal line, and it costs them more than once.
03:36 It costs them three times really, in the kicking game as well.
03:40 The other thing I didn't get is that TCU, especially in the first half, was trying to attack the perimeter.
03:47 And when you attack the perimeter as an offensive team, that's typically a way around when you're outsized and outmanned inside.
03:56 TCU was neither of those things. When they ran between the tackles, it worked really well.
04:01 And it wasn't just a couple of explosive plays, it was trunk play after trunk play after trunk play.
04:05 Like I said, offensive line, I thought did a really nice job getting a push up front.
04:10 They handled their business. Imani Bailey was terrific.
04:13 I thought the receivers were okay.
04:16 Was not impressed with Chandler Morris.
04:19 But the run game was just criminally underused, I thought.
04:23 On the other side of the football, a lot of bad stuff.
04:26 A lot of really bad stuff. He gave up 45 points.
04:30 Not much good to say here.
04:32 I thought Joe Gillespie was outcoached, which is strange.
04:36 He's a good defensive coordinator. A lot of high hopes for him.
04:40 And he's got a lot of talent on that side of the ball.
04:42 The defense seemed surprised that Colorado was running fast and running plays quickly.
04:47 And that they were fast and athletic.
04:49 And that begs me the question, what were you doing the past couple of months?
04:53 Certainly you weren't looking ahead to Nichols.
04:56 They seemed unprepared. They were outcoached. They were surprised.
05:00 I don't really think the defense knew what they were looking at, particularly around the goal line.
05:05 Dylan Edwards from Colorado, four touchdowns.
05:10 Electric player. Fast, shifty.
05:14 He was a Notre Dame commit, but Colorado took him.
05:17 He's a true freshman. Super fast, great player.
05:20 But there was bad tackling, poor pursuit angles, particularly in the secondary.
05:26 Just outplayed.
05:28 And on the other side, Travis Hunter, certified dude.
05:30 Not really much you could do there.
05:32 That grab in the end zone that did not end up being a touchdown, but very well could have been.
05:36 There's not really much you could do there.
05:38 He was a better player. I thought he was better than Josh Newton.
05:41 Josh Newton seemed like he had his hands more than full.
05:44 That he was actually being outplayed.
05:46 And that's just going to be something you're going to see all year long.
05:49 It doesn't matter who Colorado's playing.
05:51 Travis Hunter is probably going to be the best player on the field more often than not.
05:55 When you play 129 snaps and you play at the high level that he did, hats off.
06:00 Yeah, you know, I was on this podcast last week saying I didn't think Colorado was going to be any good.
06:05 And that I had questions about Shadur Sanders.
06:07 And yeah, wrong. Completely wrong. Proven absolutely wrong.
06:10 Shadur Sanders is going to be fine as a quarterback.
06:13 He's going to be very good. He can play at a high level.
06:15 Travis Hunter is a beast.
06:17 Jimmy Horn seemed to be open more often than not.
06:20 And Xavier Weaver actually made a lot of plays there.
06:22 But I thought the volume going to Jimmy Horn was pretty impressive.
06:25 But when you give up multiple guys with 100 receiving yards, you know you did something wrong there.
06:30 TC's defense just kind of fell apart.
06:33 If there is any good to take out of it, it's that the defensive line controlled their space.
06:36 They allowed 1.6 yards per rush and 15 Colorado rushing attempts went for two or fewer yards.
06:42 So there was some good. They did control the line of scrimmage as expected.
06:46 But Colorado took the approach of, hey, we're going to attack the perimeter.
06:50 And we're going to play fast and avoid being beat inside by an offensive line that does not have the depth, size, or talent to compete with TC's defensive line.
06:59 And it worked.
07:00 Sean Lewis, offensive master class in my opinion.
07:03 I thought he did a terrific job.
07:05 You didn't even know that the offensive line was getting whipped on both sides because he was getting the ball out in space and letting his athletes kind of take advantage there and take advantage.
07:16 They sure did.
07:17 Shadurah Sanders over 500 passing yards.
07:19 That's just phenomenal.
07:20 He's a great player.
07:21 He's getting some possibly deserved or maybe a little preemptive Heisman hype.
07:26 Travis Hunter certainly in that conversation after week one and likely in the conversation all year long.
07:32 A lot of people likening him to Shohei Otani for a cross sport reference.
07:37 I'm not a big baseball guy, but just the versatility and the dominance on both sides of the ball.
07:42 It's kind of like, well, you keep him out there for 130 snaps because he's just as good a receiver as he is a corner.
07:47 And that's something we highlight on the podcast here.
07:49 But that's not telling anybody that that's, you know, things that they don't know.
07:52 But I was really surprised to see the defensive secondary outclass in this game.
07:56 I really think it just came down to preparedness and coaching on both sides.
07:59 The ball was frankly atrocious.
08:01 I really like to see better preparedness next week.
08:04 I don't know if the coaching staff except expected to just dominate the game and not have to try and not have to try anything interesting.
08:12 I don't know if they expected to walk all over this team, but that did not happen.
08:15 They let Colorado get some swagger early and they carried it through and into the postgame presser and frankly into this coming week.
08:23 Yeah, Colorado looked really good.
08:25 Hand up.
08:26 Absolutely wrong in the assessment last week here.
08:29 But game's over.
08:31 TCU 0-1 to start.
08:33 Colorado 1-0 jumped in the AP poll number 22.
08:36 Probably a game Horned Frog fans would like to forget here in the near future.
08:41 Fortunately, we have an opportunity to be able to forget this game in the near future.
08:46 And on Saturday, TCU hosts Nichols, the Nichols Colonels coming up from the FCS ranks.
08:54 There's a couple of kinds of FCS foes you can play.
08:59 There's really good ones like South Dakota State that can play with and beat power five schools.
09:04 Good offenses, good defenses.
09:07 North Dakota State comes to mind when you think of that.
09:11 The Montana schools.
09:12 Holy Cross is playing Boston College this week in a game that I think will actually be fairly close and very exciting.
09:18 But there's those kind of FCS foes.
09:21 And then there's teams like Nichols that benefit from the exposure, the paycheck, dire paycheck that program, athletic programs that size need at the divisional level.
09:31 And also the experience of playing in a big time, big, tall stadium and playing a big time opponent, maybe even make it on TV.
09:39 The Colonels went three and eight last year, scoring on both offense and defense was outside the top 100 nationally in the FCS.
09:47 We're not talking about a team that was particularly excellent at either side of the ball.
09:51 Last week, they lost to Sacramento State, who had their entire coaching staff wiped and they're rebuilding.
09:57 They lost them 38, 24.
10:00 Nichols has to replace their starting quarterback.
10:03 They're leading Russia from last year and the two leading receivers.
10:06 Now, last week, their quarterback threw for 196 yards.
10:11 His name is Pat McQuaid.
10:14 The 84 of those 196 yards came on a single touchdown pass.
10:18 So you take that out.
10:19 We're talking about 112 passing yards for an entire game against the defense.
10:23 That's solid.
10:24 But again, rebuilding and not excellent.
10:28 I wouldn't say TCU's defense, of course, far, far more talented.
10:33 And then the other side of the ball, Nichols allowed three scores on the ground.
10:36 TCU showed a propensity to be able to run the football.
10:39 Amani Bailey, I think, is going to rack up a ton of yards this year, kind of like what we saw in Kendra Miller last year.
10:44 And they should be able to run the ball on Nichols.
10:47 And even if you have the questionable play calling where they need to go in their bag and pull out a fun pass or a fun screen they put in this week, that shouldn't be a problem against this team.
10:56 To be honest, TCU should be a five plus touchdown favorite, maybe 40 points in this game.
11:01 This is not like last week.
11:02 Everybody relax.
11:03 Third, if TCU loses this game to Nichols, yeah, just pack it in for the season.
11:09 Really?
11:10 I don't think that I don't think we're going to see that this week.
11:14 Nichols, not a lot of FBS success.
11:17 They've never beat a power five team.
11:19 And they come into Fort Worth on Saturday to play the TC Horned Frogs in a game that TCU really should.
11:25 Be able to get right and turn around.
11:27 So I ranked them 108th Nichols, that is, in my FCS rankings.
11:33 So, you know, based on last week, I like to see more of a drive to run the ball.
11:40 I want to see improved play calling, better game flow.
11:43 And I want to see more decisiveness from Chandler Morris, because if he's not going to be able to read the field and make good throws and avoid extremely costly interceptions, then TCU may be in for a tough year.
11:53 It may be a year or more akin to what we were expecting last year rather than what we got.
11:58 But I need to see decisiveness.
12:00 I need to see better play calling and just better effort, really better preparedness on both sides of the ball here.
12:06 But thanks for tuning in to this short Killer Frogs Killer Minute, a true minute in this case.
12:11 College Football Podcast, find us over at KillerFrogs.com or on Twitter at Killer Frogs.
12:17 I'm @RoadToCFB and continue the conversation over on Facebook.
12:20 Give us a score prediction of TCU Nichols.
12:23 I think TCU rolls, probably scoring in the 50s, doesn't give up many points to say 55-7, I think is where I land on this game here.
12:32 If you liked what you heard, this is kind of different than what we've been doing.
12:36 I'll be joined next week by another one of my co-hosts, co-writers, colleagues to discuss week three against SMU.
12:45 Go ahead and subscribe to us on your podcasting app of choice via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, whatever you're using these days.
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13:01 Check back next week for another episode of the Killer Frogs College Football Podcast.
13:05 I am Brett Gibbons and we'll catch you all next time.
13:08 (upbeat music)