No politicking planned by TCU's Patterson

Nov 17, 2009 - 10:41 PM By STEPHEN HAWKINS AP Sports Writer

FORT WORTH, Texas(AP) -- TCU coach Gary Patterson has no plans to lobby for votes and a spot in the national championship game if his team ends the regular season undefeated.

Patterson believes that all the fourth-ranked Horned Frogs (10-0, 6-0 Mountain West) can do to prove themselves is play well. If that's not enough, he figures campaigning won't really change anything.

"Do you think it would do me good to politick to play for a national championship?" Patterson said Tuesday. "All I can do to change people's minds is the play on the field."

That has been Patterson's stance throughout his nine seasons as TCU's coach. But the Frogs have reached new heights this year.

TCU is fourth in the Bowl Championship Series standings, higher than any team from a conference without an automatic bid has ever been this late in a season. The Frogs trail only Florida, Alabama and Texas - the trio from which the national championship matchup most likely will be set if the Gators or Crimson Tide are still undefeated after they play each other in the SEC championship game and the Longhorns don't slip up in the Big 12.

Patterson still isn't an advocate for a playoff system despite the uncertainty of a title shot for his Frogs, who are coming off a 55-27 victory over No. 23 Utah, last year's BCS buster and the only outsider to play twice in the big-money games.

"All those people that you're talking about started at the top. You have to give them credit, give them the respect of what they've been able to do up until this point," Patterson said. "For us, you have some conversations if somebody slips up."

And, of course, the Frogs win their last two games.

Florida, Alabama and Texas all began the season ranked in the top five of the AP poll. TCU, which ended last season seventh, began this year 10 points lower and has made a steady climb into contention.

Now the Frogs need only wins Saturday at Wyoming (5-5) and then the following weekend at home against winless New Mexico to complete their first undefeated regular season since 1938, when they won their only national championship and Heisman Trophy winner Davey O'Brien was the quarterback.

"We've got quite a task at hand this week, just because of playing a team that also has a chance to be bowl eligible. So for us, we just need to keep minding our own business," Patterson said. "Playing at home (to end the regular season), if you could get by this ball game, then I think you can start letting your mind think a little bit more."

Patterson will remind everybody that that the Frogs lost 24-21 when they last went to Wyoming two years ago, but fail to mention that the Frogs beat the Cowboys 54-7 last season.

Wyoming had scored only 10 points its previous three games and was trailing 27-6 going into the fourth quarter last week at San Diego State before pulling out a 30-27 victory. The week before that, TCU won 55-12 in San Diego.

TCU also got to 10-0 in 2003 before losing at Southern Miss.

But if the Frogs are able to finish the deal this year, they won't be satisfied by just getting into a BCS game. They want to back up how they feel.

"The only way that Gary Patterson and TCU can talk is whoever we play against, if we get a chance to play in one of those games, we've got to go and we need to win," the coach said. "You go to a BCS game and win, that's why you're going there.

"That's how you get a chance to play for a national championship some day," he said. "Go to win."