TCU coach Gary Patterson wishes that expansion of the College Football Playoff would have happened years ago.

“I put it in a playoff perspective,” Patterson said. “I think that in the eight years we’ve been in the Big 12, ‘14, ‘15, and ‘17 I think we would have in the playoffs if we would have been 12 teams. We know how to win ballgames, between 2008 and 2010, we were 36-3. 2014 and 2015, we were 23-3. So winning ballgames is not new to TCU. 2017, you win 11-3, the three losses were the two teams that were picked at the top of the conference this year. Iowa State team, we lost by three at our house.

“I told my team this week, if you want to win 10, 11, ballgames, you’re probably going to win five ball games because the parity in this league is very close. So you’re going to have to win the close ball games. When we’ve had big wins, you’re going to have win games by ten points or less and so how do you do that. This is one of the years where we go on the road five times, four at home, but we have seven homes games.”

Patterson said a big key is having a returning quarterback.

“It will be the first time we have had a returning quarterback back since 2017,” Patterson said. “People don’t really understand what Max (Duggan) went through a year ago, when you understand you’re only a freshman, you’re going to go in the spring, you don’t have spring, you didn’t get an opportunity to also throw in the summer with your teammates, and then he had his condition, and they basically didn’t let him do anything until a week before we played on the 26th against Iowa State. So for him to grow up where he’s at, an unbelievable leader.”