The Horned Frogs’ preseason camp opened alongside Media Day. Head coach Gary Patterson and various football players answered questions from the media.

Included below are excerpts from Horned Frog coach Gary Patterson’s news conference in the Four Sevens Team Room.

Opening statement …

“Obviously, you know all the expectations about where we are right now. As we look at our pyramid, we’re working on that bottom category (attitude, chemistry, family, accountable). That’s where we’ll start. We’ve got to be the best TCU team we can. If we don’t do that, we won’t accomplish what we need to.”

On a sense of urgency to start the season …

“It’s not going to be any different than last year when we played Virginia and Clemson. You need to have ballgames like Oregon State. It’s a chance to play in the national spotlight.”

On facing the Beavers in the season opener …

“Oregon State has a very good football team with a lot of starters back. They play great defense, do the things on offense that they need to and have good skill players. We will see coming out of the first 29 practices who did the best job getting ready for the first game. Hopefully, that is us.”

On how the off-season went …

“We did the same things we’ve always done. The guys have worked hard. The difference from last year is that we had a good number of guys who had not played a lot of football. We now have 54 lettermen coming back.”

On continuing to build a nationally-prominent program …

“We’re trying to be a good program. We don’t have Jerry Hughes on our team anymore, but the rest of them might be able to make up for him. We find the next guy who steps up. You find out what kind of football team you have after practices. You come up with a plan and try to win. You recruit guys who want to be at TCU and want to win championships.”

On immediate goals for practices …

“We need to develop our back-ups. Our younger players need to develop in the next 30 days and be in position to keep growing.”

On the excitement around TCU football …

“When you have this many players coming back, it’s always exciting. I told people two years ago that this would be a good team because they would be more mature.