Fort Worth Magazine
There is no competition this year to determine TCU's starting quarterback. Chandler Morris is the guy going into the season.
There is much anticipation for TCU’s football season opener Sept. 2 against Colorado, starting with the opponent’s head coach.
Deion Sanders’ first game as coach at the FBS level is perhaps the top storyline that week. Moreover, Colorado will soon be joining TCU in the Big 12 Conference, in 2024.
Welcome to the party, Buffs. It will only feel as if you’re playing on the surface of the sun that first Saturday in September. Bring water.
On top of all that, however, is simply the fact that the Horned Frogs will be taking the field for the first time since Jan. 9. TCU limped away from SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles with a few bruises after Georgia left no doubt who was the best team in the country in 2022.
“I think about that game every day,” says cornerback Josh Newton on Thursday after the morning’s practice.
Instead of a trophy, the Frogs earned a chip on their shoulders.
“That’s what makes me go hard out there,” adds Newton, always a fun, playful, colorful interview. If you want to know something, ask Newton. He’ll tell you.
“I remember after the national championship game, I was looking at the picture the other day … I was just standing out there trying to remember that feeling forever so I can come back and conquer.”
The Frogs this summer are currently working to channel all that inspiration and, ahem, perspiration, as well as the newness of a new offensive play caller and new faces filling in for key losses on offense and defense. TCU lost its two leading rushers, top three receivers, and some linemen.
It also lost QB Max Duggan. Chandler Morris is (again) the starting QB out of fall practice. If you remember, he was the starter last year as well before being injured against Colorado in the first game.
Fate did its thing.
The defense needs to replace some pass rushers.
There is a lot of curiosity about how TCU will respond in 2023.
Newton was succinct: “Get with us or get lost.”
Morris, of course, lost his job last year, and Newton is playing under a microscope with expectations. He’s on the Jim Thorpe Watch List, trying to become the next TCU player to win the award after teammate Tre’Vius Hodges Tomlinson won it last year. Newton is also a first-team All-Big 12 preseason selection.
That leadership nucleus appears to be those two guys, whose lockers are next to each other.
“He’s got that mindset that I want everybody to have,” Morris says of Newton. “I look up to him, I learned a lot from him and the leader that he is. He inspires me. I look up to that guy, he’s a great leader and a great man off the field. I know I got his back because I know he has mine, so, we have a really good connection.”
Said Newton: “I love No. 4, man.”
Vegas likes the Frogs by plenty in the debut of Coach Prime, who is rebuilding brick by brick after taking over a one-win program in shambles from a year ago. The preseason Big 12 coaches poll picked the Frogs fifth.
TCU was picked below that last summer.
“We saw the blueprint what it takes last year,” Morris says. “I got to see that. And it came out in the winter and the summer, those days [in the offseason] when we didn't want to wake up, you want to press snooze on your alarm. But you get up and you go and attack the workout or attack the practice. We're kind of in those dog days of camp right now where, everybody's tired, everyone wants camp to end, but [the message is] don't be everybody; you gotta be special. Don’t follow the pack.”
