About the Utes: Playing their first road game, they're aiming for their 11th straight Mountain West Conference victory. . . . QB Brian Johnson ranks ninth nationally in pass efficiency at 172.3. . . . RB Quinton Ganther leads the league by averaging 114.5 rushing yards per game. . . . They have neither scored nor been scored upon in the first quarter. . . . They have converted just 8 of 26 third downs. . . . They have won their last nine nationally televised games.
About the Horned Frogs: Playing their first home game, they're also playing their first league game as members of the Mountain West. . . . QB Tye Gunn is 11-3 as a starter. . . . WR Cory Rodgers has caught 114 passes in his career, including at least one in all 26 games since he joined the Frogs.
Three keys to a Utah victory
1 RATTLE THE GUNN
Quarterback Tye Gunn plays better for TCU when he starts well, his coach said, so the Utes must get to him early and hope they can force mistakes and turnovers.
2 THROW IT HIGH
Receiver John Madsen could have a big day if TCU plays man coverage against the 6-foot-5 senior with no safety help, never mind keep the Frogs from stacking up against the run.
3 NO SPECIAL MISTAKES
The Utes must let TCU miss the field goals, commit the penalties and kick off out of bounds. And they cannot let TCU's Cory Rodgers hurt them in the return game.
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: TCU to turn up the heat on Utah
Even before beating Oklahoma and losing to SMU on successive Saturdays, TCU already was Utah's most intriguing football opponent this season.
For one thing, the Horned Frogs are fresh meat.
The Utes have defeated everybody else on the '05 schedule at least once during their 18-game winning streak. "It is different," Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said of preparations for tonight's game in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Frogs are Mountain West Conference newcomers, and they need an introduction.
They wear purple uniforms, play in a stadium named after a newspaper publisher, produced legendary quarterbacks Sammy Baugh and Davey O'Brien some 70 years ago, insist on being known by the school's initials and staged two of the most memorable road games in BYU and Utah history - because of the playing conditions, not necessarily the results.
The temperature at kickoff approached 100 degrees with accompanying humidity the only other time the Utes visited Amon G. Carter Stadium, on a Saturday night in September 1997 during TCU's brief stay in
the expanded WAC. Steve Luhm was covering the Utes for The Tribune that season and his game story described the weather for the 32-18 Utah victory as hot enough to "make your eyeballs melt and run down your cheeks."
"It was warm," confirmed Whittingham, then Utah's defensive coordinator.
Ten years earlier, BYU visited TCU in September. That night, crickets were everywhere - in the press box and on the field, being crunched by players on the artificial turf. With no seagulls available, the Cougars suffered a 33-12 defeat.
Today's forecast calls for temperatures in the 90s with isolated crickets. Whittingham considered having the Utes practice in their indoor facility Tuesday with the heat cranked up to simulate the Fort Worth environment, but decided that was too "gimmicky," not to mention costly to taxpayers.
So the Utes will resort to the traditional method of relying on a lot of fluids, substitutions and the hope that their offseason training was sufficient. Meanwhile, clearly violating the one-game-a-time mantra, the coaching staff spent part of the summer studying the Frogs, knowing this would be a short week of preparation.
Good thinking, considering the volume of TCU's playbook. "We have not come across a lot of offenses that have as much in the package as TCU," Whittingham said.
That's by design. "One thing we pride ourselves on is it's difficult in getting yourselves ready to play us in a short week," said Frogs coach Gary Patterson. "It's difficult on both sides. We don't know each other. You have to get used to the nuances. The team that does the best job of that . . ."
Patterson did not complete the thought, although his direction was clear - in contrast to his team's season. TCU's early results do offer a couple of natural conclusions about its opponents, if not itself:
Oklahoma is not very good. If Tommy Grady, now attending Utah, really was the Sooners' third-best quarterback in camp, don't expect much from him. Then again, the way things are going in Norman, the Sooners may be sending a Learjet to bring him back.
SMU is not that bad. In fact, the United Methodist Church may soon insist that the Mustangs be identified by the school's full name, unlike their Christian rivals. The athletic department's news releases always request the use of "TCU" as the official label for its teams.
The Frogs can call themselves anything they want if they can end the Utes' winning streak, while regaining the national attention that they apparently enjoyed too much after upsetting Oklahoma. This game will be a legitimate test for quarterback Brian Johnson, a native Texan, and the rest of the Ute offense.
The Frogs will bring a lot of pressure in an attempt to rattle Johnson and disrupt the spread scheme, while daring the sophomore QB to beat a secondary that struggled last season and is supposedly improved, but has not faced a quality passer this year.
The Utes' chances hinge almost entirely on Johnson's staying cool. As Whittingham remembers, that's not easy to do in Fort Worth in mid-September.
About the Horned Frogs: Playing their first home game, they're also playing their first league game as members of the Mountain West. . . . QB Tye Gunn is 11-3 as a starter. . . . WR Cory Rodgers has caught 114 passes in his career, including at least one in all 26 games since he joined the Frogs.
Three keys to a Utah victory
1 RATTLE THE GUNN
Quarterback Tye Gunn plays better for TCU when he starts well, his coach said, so the Utes must get to him early and hope they can force mistakes and turnovers.
2 THROW IT HIGH
Receiver John Madsen could have a big day if TCU plays man coverage against the 6-foot-5 senior with no safety help, never mind keep the Frogs from stacking up against the run.
3 NO SPECIAL MISTAKES
The Utes must let TCU miss the field goals, commit the penalties and kick off out of bounds. And they cannot let TCU's Cory Rodgers hurt them in the return game.
================
: TCU to turn up the heat on Utah
Even before beating Oklahoma and losing to SMU on successive Saturdays, TCU already was Utah's most intriguing football opponent this season.
For one thing, the Horned Frogs are fresh meat.
The Utes have defeated everybody else on the '05 schedule at least once during their 18-game winning streak. "It is different," Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said of preparations for tonight's game in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Frogs are Mountain West Conference newcomers, and they need an introduction.
They wear purple uniforms, play in a stadium named after a newspaper publisher, produced legendary quarterbacks Sammy Baugh and Davey O'Brien some 70 years ago, insist on being known by the school's initials and staged two of the most memorable road games in BYU and Utah history - because of the playing conditions, not necessarily the results.
The temperature at kickoff approached 100 degrees with accompanying humidity the only other time the Utes visited Amon G. Carter Stadium, on a Saturday night in September 1997 during TCU's brief stay in
the expanded WAC. Steve Luhm was covering the Utes for The Tribune that season and his game story described the weather for the 32-18 Utah victory as hot enough to "make your eyeballs melt and run down your cheeks."
"It was warm," confirmed Whittingham, then Utah's defensive coordinator.
Ten years earlier, BYU visited TCU in September. That night, crickets were everywhere - in the press box and on the field, being crunched by players on the artificial turf. With no seagulls available, the Cougars suffered a 33-12 defeat.
Today's forecast calls for temperatures in the 90s with isolated crickets. Whittingham considered having the Utes practice in their indoor facility Tuesday with the heat cranked up to simulate the Fort Worth environment, but decided that was too "gimmicky," not to mention costly to taxpayers.
So the Utes will resort to the traditional method of relying on a lot of fluids, substitutions and the hope that their offseason training was sufficient. Meanwhile, clearly violating the one-game-a-time mantra, the coaching staff spent part of the summer studying the Frogs, knowing this would be a short week of preparation.
Good thinking, considering the volume of TCU's playbook. "We have not come across a lot of offenses that have as much in the package as TCU," Whittingham said.
That's by design. "One thing we pride ourselves on is it's difficult in getting yourselves ready to play us in a short week," said Frogs coach Gary Patterson. "It's difficult on both sides. We don't know each other. You have to get used to the nuances. The team that does the best job of that . . ."
Patterson did not complete the thought, although his direction was clear - in contrast to his team's season. TCU's early results do offer a couple of natural conclusions about its opponents, if not itself:
Oklahoma is not very good. If Tommy Grady, now attending Utah, really was the Sooners' third-best quarterback in camp, don't expect much from him. Then again, the way things are going in Norman, the Sooners may be sending a Learjet to bring him back.
SMU is not that bad. In fact, the United Methodist Church may soon insist that the Mustangs be identified by the school's full name, unlike their Christian rivals. The athletic department's news releases always request the use of "TCU" as the official label for its teams.
The Frogs can call themselves anything they want if they can end the Utes' winning streak, while regaining the national attention that they apparently enjoyed too much after upsetting Oklahoma. This game will be a legitimate test for quarterback Brian Johnson, a native Texan, and the rest of the Ute offense.
The Frogs will bring a lot of pressure in an attempt to rattle Johnson and disrupt the spread scheme, while daring the sophomore QB to beat a secondary that struggled last season and is supposedly improved, but has not faced a quality passer this year.
The Utes' chances hinge almost entirely on Johnson's staying cool. As Whittingham remembers, that's not easy to do in Fort Worth in mid-September.
