Perhaps borrowing a page from a fellow Big 12 head coach’s playbook ahead of a season opener against an SEC school, Gary Patterson has decided to play coy when it comes to who’s under center at the most important position on the football field.
Expected to name a starter at quarterback in short order, the TCU head coach deferred to, well, kickoff of the highly-anticipated opener against LSU. While it’s expected that Casey Pachall (pictured, No. 4) will be the starter for the Horned Frogs, Patterson declined to anoint either him or Trevone Boykin (pictured, other dude jumping with no number showing).
“We won’t tell LSU who that guy is going to be until we play,” Patterson said according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “You won’t know until he runs out on the field in the first huddle on game day.”
If it is indeed Pachall that runs out into the season-opening huddle, it would officially culminate the resurrection of a career that was nearly derailed by off-field issues.
Pachall, the starter at the time, was arrested in early October of last year and suspended indefinitely by the football program following a drunk-driving charge. He left the school entirely a short time later to enter a rehab program.
At the time of a February 2012 drug sweep that caught up several Horned Frog football players, Pachall admitted to police that he had failed a drug test and used cocaine and Ecstasy within the past year.
Boykin replaced Pachall in the starting lineup early in the second month of the 2012 season following the latter’s arrest.
Whether Boykin retains the starting job dropped in his lap last year remains unclear. What is clear is Patterson’s motive behind keeping the Tigers guessing.
“Especially in a first ballgame,” the coach said about keeping his QB cards tight to the vest, “if there’s differences in styles, then it hurts your football team if you’re going to go out and tell people, even if you know. You want those guys to prepare for both, because it’s a lot different preparing for Casey Pachall than it is for Trevone Boykin.”