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TCU football coach rips SMU for staging flag-planting that led to coach’s injury

TCU football coach Gary Patterson didn’t hold back his feelings on SMU and coach Sonny Dykes for the postgame scuffle that followed Saturday’s game in Fort Worth.

Patterson said TCU special assistant Jerry Kill was diagnosed with a concussion after being knocked over twice during the fight, including once by his own players. Multiple video angles from the fight show that Kill had been knocked over by his own players.

Patterson said he couldn’t substantiate which team knocked Kill over the second time, or whether a SMU player used a helmet to cause an injury, as Patterson alleged during his postgame news conference.

“I cannot substantiate that it was a SMU or TCU person, but it did happen,” Patterson said during his weekly news conference Tuesday. “If we wouldn’t have had the flags, it wouldn’t have happened. OK?”

Patterson is referring to SMU players attempting to “plant” the school’s flag on TCU’s midfield afterward. And Patterson alleged that the “planting of the flag” had been discussed beforehand by SMU’s program.

Patterson pointed out that one of SMU’s videographers from its media department had been positioned to film the entire thing.

“You don’t think it was planned? They had a media person from their office that was out filming the flag getting set in the middle of the field,” Patterson said. “It’s OK. But don’t tell me there wasn’t a plan somewhere there.

“A guy [Kill] got hurt. Why I’m upset about it, a guy got hurt that things like that usually cause seizures. A guy got hurt. He got pushed down by our kids once on film in the middle of it and he got hit because I’ve got the proof to show it.

“At the end of the day, whether it’s SMU, TCU, I can’t substantiate it. But at the end of the day it wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t have the flag situation.”

SMU denied Patterson’s claims that it staged the flag-planting afterward.

“This is a complete fabrication,” SMU AD Rick Hart said in a statement. “I can state unequivocally that there was no such plan.”

Hart added that SMU reviewed all of the videos and found no evidence that anyone associated with its program struck Kill.

Patterson said Kill is OK and has returned to work this week. Kill, who was diagnosed with epilepsy in 2005, retired from head coaching in 2015 due to health reasons.

Patterson went on to express his displeasure with SMU for using one of Patterson’s songs he released during COVID — “Take a Step Back” — to rip the state of TCU’s program.

“We have rivalries. People get to where they hate you,” Patterson said. “Just go back to the 61-58 game at Baylor, players are getting into my face and doing things. I giggle. You know what? That’s what you want to do. You want to win enough that people hate you.

“They hate you cause they take a song that you wrote about COVID and getting back to families and they make fun of you. If I had the time, I’d go out and get all the copyright laws and I’d get after their ass but I’ve got Longhorns on my mind right now. Not them. I’m glad they keep substantiating our existence of where we’re at and how we do things.”

Patterson also ranted about Dykes, who served on TCU’s staff as an offensive analyst during the 2017 season.

Dykes called TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati on Sunday to discuss the postgame incident, not Patterson.

“Sonny has been a good friend of mine. I was disappointed that the AD got a call, I never got a call about Jerry getting hit,” Patterson said. “When we couldn’t play in COVID, I made the phone call to Sonny Dykes, not him (Donati). I made the phone call saying, ‘All of our quarterbacks are out. We can’t play.’ That’s what the head coach of programs do. Not have one of their assistants text me in the middle of the night, or call my AD.

“I still consider him a friend. I’m going to go forward with it.”

Finally, Patterson said, he felt his players handled the situation the right way. Patterson wasn’t happy initially with his players when he heard there were fights after the game, but has changed his stance once he learned that it started when SMU tried to “plant” the flag at midfield.

“I was upset at our guys for fighting. I didn’t know when I came in here (for the postgame news conference), or when I went to the locker room, there had been a flag situation,” Patterson said. “I just heard our guys had been fighting. Now, like I told them on Sunday in our team meeting, I was proud of them. The bottom line to it is that’s what you’re supposed to do at the end of the day. You’re supposed to defend what we’ve all worked for and what we do and how we do things.

“And I would expect, if my kids would act that way at SMU, I would expect them to act the same way if they tried to do it at their stadium. But don’t tell me you don’t know the plan. That’s all I’m going to say to you — don’t tell me within your office, your coaches, you don’t know a media person is going to go over here and video a flag being (planted). Don’t tell me that nobody knows about all of that stuff going on. You want to hate us because we won? Hate us. That’s a good thing.”

Patterson has lost consecutive games to SMU for the first time in his career (2021 and 2019). The teams didn’t play in 2020 due to scheduling issues amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Patterson is 15-4 lifetime against SMU.

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