Turner gets 3 TD runs in TCU’s 56-21 victory

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP)—A perfect victory for No. 15 TCU and coach Gary Patterson: a lopsided score and still plenty of teaching points.

Joseph Turner ran for 129 yards and three touchdowns on 13 carries and Jerry Hughes had three sacks as the Horned Frogs won their home opener 56-21 over Texas State, a Football Championship Subdivision opponent that stayed close into third quarter because of TCU mistakes.

“We didn’t play the way we needed to, we didn’t have the emotion we needed to,” Patterson said. “We just came out and did what we needed to do.”

With a looming trip to Clemson, that was for TCU (2-0) to get the expected outcome against a lower-division team on the same day Mountain West Conference foes and fellow hopeful BCS busters No. 7 BYU and No. 18 Utah lost.

Patterson said he was ultimately happy with the victory, but knew he was going to be upset with his team by Sunday morning after reviewing the film.

“They already know that. I didn’t have to say anything in the locker room, they already know how this is going down,” Patterson said. “We have to have attention to detail, we have to communicate. … We have the potential to be what we want to be. The key to it is we have to go play.”

A week earlier, Patterson was upset about giving up two late touchdowns in a 30-14 victory at Virginia.

Turner’s first TD, a 3-yard run early in the second quarter, put TCU ahead to stay 2 1/2 minutes after the Bobcats (1-1) tied the game 7-all on Frank Reddic’s fourth-down plunge from a yard out. Texas State’s 16-play drive started after an interception, was extended with a fake punt and aided by a pass interference penalty in the end zone.

When asked about Hughes’ three sacks, Patterson mentioned the offside penalty against Hughes during that drive.

Hughes smiled, then added that Patterson being upset “is a whole new creature out there. It will be good for us, will get us to focus more.”

Hughes had started only one game his first two seasons before being an All-American last year, when he led the nation with 15 sacks. He has 4 1/2 this season, stopping an early Texas State drive when he got to Bradley George on a third-down play.

TCU led 28-14 at halftime when Turner scored on a 1-yard run in the final minute, then Antoine Hicks scored on a 4-yard run to start the second half. But Texas State wouldn’t go away.

Tim Hawkins, a redshirt freshman who gets occasional snaps, came in and threw a 16-yard TD pass to Daren Dillard midway through the third quarter. The Bobcats then got the ball right back when Ron Jackson recovered Dalton’s fumble at the 10 before Bradley George’s pass was intercepted in the end zone by Jason Teague.

“Our players played a very good football team here, and there is a reason why they are ranked where they are,” Bobcats coach Brad Wright said. “We got a lot to learn from this game.”

Andy Dalton, the Frogs’ third-year starting quarterback as a junior, was 18-of-24 for 222 yards and a 36-yard TD to Jimmy Young in his 19th career victory—one more than Davey O’Brien, 10 fewer than TCU leader Sammy Baugh.

TCU put the game away with three TD runs in the fourth quarter, from Turner (6 yards), Matthew Tucker (1 yard) and Jercell Fort (9 yards).

George, the 6-foot-6 quarterback who is a 27-year-old fourth-year starter after first playing minor league baseball, was 16-of-37 for 199 yards with a 62-yard TD to Alvin Canady, who was wide open out of the backfield because of an apparent busted coverage. Canady caught the pass near midfield and sprinted untouched for the score.

The Bobcats were without Karrington Bush, a 1,000-yard rusher the past two seasons, because of a knee injury sustained in their season opener two weeks earlier.

Dalton was under heavy pressure when he threw up a pass that was intercepted by T.P. Miller to set up Texas State’s long TD drive. The Bobcats appeared to go three-and-out and punted, with Jeremy Kerley returning it 23 yards. But TCU was penalized for lining up in the neutral zone, and punter Ben Hollis then ran for first down on fourth-and-1.