TCU gave up 260 yards on the ground and five rushing touchdowns to the Sooners on Saturday, but according to Horned Frogs head coach Gary Patterson it was the Big 12 officials that cost the game, and that danged ole Baker Mayfield kid just won’t leave him alone either.
“Amazing,” Patterson said in his post game press conference. “We can’t say anything but they can say whatever they want to. I don’t really care right now if the commissioner, if they don’t like what I think about the officials. Talk about sportsmanship in this game. I have a quarterback who writes a whole article about me, how I treated him. But I can’t say anything about officials. Bottom line, I wasn’t happy with the officiating.”
The, “I have a quarterback who writes a whole article about me,” is a direct reference to Baker Mayfield. Despite recruiting Mayfield out of high school, Gary Patterson never offered him a scholarship and Mayfield has used that experience (and other similar ones) as his motivation. It came into the spotlight when Mayfield spoke about it to the media before Oklahoma’s Orange Bowl appearance last December and apparently Patterson hasn’t quite recovered from it.
The play in question was an intentional ground call against TCU quarterback Kenny Hill on the Frogs final possession. After initially waving off the flag, officials met and determined that Hill was still in the “tackle box” and therefore ruled the play to be grounding. Unfortunately for Patterson they officials were correct and I’m assuming that he had not yet seen a replay at the time of his statement.
TCU plays Kansas next week so perhaps that’ll sooth some of Patterson’s anger. As for the rift between he and Baker Mayfield, perhaps he should take a play from the Disney playbook.