Dec. 30, 2012

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TCU POSTGAME QUOTES
Michigan State 17, TCU 16
Dec. 29, 2012
Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl
Tempe, Ariz. (Sun Devil Stadium)
Attendance: 44,617

TCU Head Coach Gary Patterson
Opening Statement:
"Well, for us, a great ballgame. Only one person I can blame is myself really. No disrespect to Michigan State, but for us, felt like the fumble, did a couple things, we're in the red zone had to kick field goals. Then fumbled the ball down on the one, two, three yard line, you're not going to win against good football teams. For us, glad we got here. A little empty inside because we felt we left a lot on the field."

Even after this game, throughout this entire season, what does this first season of BCS conference mean for this program?
"There's not even a measure. It's a slam dunk. You just look, when the whole TV contract clicks in, what it's done for the City of Fort Worth, what it's done for the university. It's not even a comparison. It was a win-win before we won one ballgame or lost one ballgame. As we go forward as a university in the Big 12, as the landscape of college football changes, I mean, there's going to be those that are moving ahead and those left behind. We're very fortunate to be where we sit right now. So for us, it's been unbelievable to be where we're at.

"It's been a great year, really, to be honest with you. We don't feel really good right now. But I'm happy for Coach Dantonio for the simple reason I know he went through some struggles this year, too. So you're sitting here, you lost by a point, knowing though if you don't fumble a punt, you don't do this or that, do it. It's like I told my team inside, there's no moral victories. They're not freshmen anymore. We're going to move forward.

"We as a program are used to being in the top 25 and doing the things we need to do. That's where we want to get back to. We want to win a conference championship. We want to play for a national championship. That's what our goals are. That's what we wanted this game to be going into next season. No change.

"We learned a lot from it. I'll have to go back and look where we allowed 226 yards total offense and got beat. You got to look at it, and did as much as we did in the first half, we just didn't put enough points on the board. We have to learn from that."

Did the offensive struggles in the second half put too much pressure on the defense?
"Like I said, they had 227 yards total offense. The guy ran for 145. You have to give him credit. The bottom line to it is, you don't fumble the ball on the two yard line. We get the ball back, who knows what happens in the ballgame. But it happened. You got to go about your business. We're going to live with it. Try not to make that mistake the next time. But, again, you got to give Michigan State a lot of credit. First half, we were going up and down the field. They found a way to stop us in the red zone, made us kick field goals.

"You have to give them a lot of credit to do so. BJ Catalan last play, wide open, and we overthrow him. We felt like Jaden, with the wind and everything, could have kicked a 65 yarder. He's kicked a 61 three or four times for us. We were looking at could we get to the 46, 47 yard line, we felt like he could make it. We never quit from the start to the finish. Against good defenses like Michigan State, you can't make those kind of mistakes."

Would you talk about Le'Veon. 
"Obviously he did a really good job. It's hard for you to compare because everybody's a little bit different. Obviously 145 yards, we feel like we have a pretty good defense. As we got into it, he had a couple runs in the second half that helped all that, made a difference. We let him out of the hole on the one run which led to I think a field goal. They still had to punt. That's the punt that ended up on the two yard line. It's a big difference.

"I thought both teams played hard. For all the bowl games, I've watched all the personal fouls, all the fighting, I saw two teams tonight play clean, play hard, go about their business. One team had to win. Too bad it wasn't us. That's just the way it goes."

Trevone seemed to struggle tonight. He also looked like he was in a lot of pain.
"I don't think there's any pain. We missed some balls. I think you got to give Michigan State a little bit of that credit. You got to learn how to find a way to win, plain and simple. Got to find a way to win."

Is a part of you glad to see the calendar year 2012 over?
"No doubt. But you know what, of all the years, if you think, new stadium, everything that went on back in February, then go down your business, new league. But, you know, if it was easy, anybody can do it. For us, we're trying to move forward. Everybody's got problems. How you deal with those problems is how you're going to move forward. For us as a program, like I said before, stated where we're trying to get to.

"You know, what I thought happened in the fourth quarter, I thought Michigan State turned up the heat and I didn't think we answered it. Plain and simple. You got to find guys that go make plays. Jaden made a play, he made 53 yard field goal. He made a play. That's what I told them before the ballgame, because I thought this was very similar to Kansas State defensively, their defense. I thought Kansas State early in the season turned up the heat, but we didn't handle it till the fourth quarter. We nickel and dimed it. I thought we did that in the fourth quarter. We've got to be able to do that and go make plays. That's what you're judged on.

"As Trevone gets older, he'll be judged on when you had the ball last, can you be the guy that drives it down the field, goes and makes the plays that makes a victory. That's what you want out of a quarterback. That's what we're looking for. For us to be successful as a program, whether it's him or whoever it is in the future, that guy has to be able to do that."

With as many games as you did win, all you accomplished, how exciting is the prospect of having a lot of these guys back?
"Well, yeah, I made a joke about we've been so young, taking diapers to practice, that will be fun. But to say probably next year we won't have to play as many freshmen, we'll have sophomores and juniors. We're still not going to have that many seniors. We're at 11 or 12. We're still young. I told them, they've got to get out of "It's okay to play okay and lose by close." That's not okay. I'm not saying that they did.

"We came this direction and lost to a Boise State 17-16. We found a way to beat a Wisconsin, an older team at the end. You go down. We've been in big ballgames. We know how to close ballgames. Teams before this group has. They need to learn how to close ballgames. I don't mean that in a bad way. That just comes with maturity and more want to and more put into. You have to have more at stake. But there was a lot of guys that made a lot of plays. Jason Verrett, Devonte Fields, go down the list of guys that made plays tonight."

They switched quarterbacks back and forth a lot. What does that do to you defensively?
"We knew that No. 18 was going to run more. To be honest with you, he was the guy they booted with, scrambled with. After a couple series, we knew when he came in, we needed to do a better job. We did it on the one drive. The one they scored on, we didn't do a good job of that. Their biggest plays besides a couple that Bell got were a couple scrambles by the quarterback. You can't let that happen."

TCU wide receiver Josh Boyce
Can you talk a little bit about what ending up as the TCU's all time season's reception leader means to you?
"Records are good to be broken, but I was coming for the win, so... Really didn't matter what the record was. We lost."

TCU safety Sam Carter
You held Bell to 38 yards in the first half. Were they doing anything differently in the second half?
"Not really. We just didn't do our assignments, made mistakes, and it cost us."