TCU, Oklahoma defend respective warm-up antics as they prepare for Big 12 championship
— -- TCU coach Gary Patterson said Tuesday that it was "common practice" for Texas Tech quarterbacks to throw at opposing players during warm-ups, in explaining what happened when Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield hit TCU safety Niko Small in the helmet before their game Nov. 11.
"They all thought it was funny, to throw balls and do those kinds of things, back in those days," Patterson said of Texas Tech, where the Sooners' Lincoln Riley got his coaching start and where Mayfield played before transferring to Oklahoma. "It's their prerogative. They can do whatever they want. We're just not going to do them here."
The incident has resurfaced as TCU and Oklahoma prepare to meet in this weekend's Big 12 championship game.
In defending Mayfield, Riley accused TCU players of running "right through the middle" of his team's warm-ups and said, "when you do that, things like that can happen."
Patterson said Tuesday that a boundary crowded with recruits forced his players to cut across the end zone.
"We couldn't get on the field, either side," Patterson said. "We asked the guy that was in charge, and he said, 'I don't know which way to send you.' Even as the head coach, I had to go through their warm-up lines to get over to our end of the field. And I wouldn't have said anything if Coach Riley wouldn't have made the remark that our guy got hit with the ball because we were running through their stretch lines."
Though he's expected to return for the Big 12 championship game, Small has missed the past two weeks. Patterson insinuated Mayfield hitting him in the head was the reason why.
"TCU in 20 years has never run through anybody's stretch lines," Patterson said. "We don't act that way. You've never seen us go out to the middle of the field and we're going to yell at each other, and we won't ever. And we've had plenty of teams that have tried to get us to do it. That's not the way we act. And so, I didn't really appreciate that they were trying to say that we were in the wrong because that was OK to let a quarterback throw a ball and hit a guy in the head that hasn't played for two weeks.
"TCU is going to try to [go] out, play fair and square, play as hard a football game as we can. I've already told my group they need to keep their mouth shut. They need to go play, period. That's what we're there for. You're going to have a championship game, it needs to be represented by champions. But don't say that we do something when we don't do that, and we've never done that. Ever."
