Head coach Gary Patterson said he has a goal on Saturday for the crowd to get involved in the last game at Amon G. Carter Stadium before the university begins its $105 million renovation.
“I want it to be so loud that they have to go silent count for the whole four quarters,” Patterson said at a weekly media luncheon.
Over 400 TCU letter winners from every decade since the 1930s will be on the field during halftime of the game, Patterson said. TCU great Jim Swink and 1984 Heisman Trophy candidate Kenneth Davis may be in attendance, among others.
The game also will mark the last in the stadium for the senior class. This year’s senior Frogs are two wins away from becoming the winningest senior class in TCU football history.
Senior defensive tackle Cory Grant said the game will be very emotional for him as well as the rest of the seniors.
“To come here and not really know much about TCU and to be part of a program that has gone above and beyond what was expected, that makes it all the more emotional,” Grant said.
Grant also said that despite the defense’s success, they are still working on filling in loopholes and fixing technical things. He said that even before coming to the media luncheon, Patterson was talking to him about a blitz that Grant messed up on.
Wide receiver Curtis Clay, who has already graduated with a degree in broadcast journalism, said he wants to send the stadium off with a bang.
A week after dismantling then-No. 5 Utah 47-7, TCU will take on the San Diego State University Aztecs, a team that has only lost two games by a combined six points.
The Aztecs can still claim at least a share of the Mountain West Conference Championship, and they are bowl eligible for the first time since 1998 and for just the sixth time in school history.
Patterson said to beat SDSU, his team will need to be on the same high emotional level it was on before playing Utah.
“I knew on Sunday [before the Utah game] they were going to play hard, and that gives yourself a chance,” Patterson said.
Patterson said he had a lot of favorite memories from the stadium that ran together.
“I think the thing more than the ball games that stick out is to just remember the players,” Patterson said. “The student-athletes, the kids that have played that are coming back that I get phone calls from.”
Patterson did not have much to say as far as his team’s position in the BCS standings but did say he didn’t understand why the conversation had to be whether or not TCU or Boise State was better.
Why is it just about us two? Everybody’s being judged. We should be kept on the same playing field,” Patterson said.
Clay said the team has to focus on what is in front of it.
“Boise State is a great team this year and last year. They beat us last season,” Clay said. “If that’s what the so-called experts want to go off of, that’s their opinion, but again, you just have to look what’s in front of you this season.”
