Nobody ever told TCU football coach Gary Patterson that winning bowl games -- much less college football games in general -- would come easy. But nobody said that he'd be forced to play a skeleton-crew version of his team with everybody watching the day after Christmas either.
Just more than a week remains until the Horned Frogs go up against the California Golden Bears in the Cheez-It Bowl, set to be played at 7 p.m. MT on Dec. 26 at Chase Field in Phoenix, Ariz. And with only five days remaining until the team's Dec. 22 departure-date for the desert, nothing is coming easy for TCU on either side of the ball after hanging on for dear-life in the final month of the regular season to merely achieve bowl-eligibility.