TCU will look to shake up the wild Big 12 even more this weekend when it heads down to Austin to take on No. 9 Texas.
The Frogs lost their opener 37-34 while Texas will look for its first 3-0 start since 2012 after a wild 63-56 overtime win at Texas Tech.
Last season, the Frogs stifled the Longhorns en route to a 37-27 win that saw TCU’s secondary pick off Sam Ehlinger four times. One of the guys that had a pick is safety Trevon Moehrig, who is ready to play the Longhorns again.
“It’s just a big game, it’s an exciting game. Anytime we play Texas it’s going to be a fun game,” Moehrig said. But I think the key is just executing as a defense and eliminating big plays and making the offense uncomfortable, just like we did last year. It’s a new game but we’ve just got to come fully prepared.”
This is a rivalry game for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that some TCU players tend to be hungrier against the Longhorns after not being offered by the blue blood. Moehrig wasn’t offered by UT despite playing high school ball less than 70 miles southwest of Austin. The safety says that isn’t a driving force for him this weekend.
“I feel like any team, if you’re just asking me, I’ve got a chip on my shoulder for any team and I think the whole team does as well. Maybe a little more for especially Texas teams or for the players who were recruited by Texas,” Moehrig said. “For me, if you’re asking me the direct question, it’s always a big game for me whenever I get to go out and play.”
His motivation is trying to pick off Big 12 preseason first-team quarterback Sam Ehlinger again.
“They’ve got some really good receivers, some really good backs that we’ve seen. Of course the QB Sam Ehlinger is a really good quarterback,” Moehrig said. “So they’re pretty loaded everywhere, so we’ve got to matchup and execute and do our job. We should be good.”
TCU’s defense started off strong last week, but allowed five plays of 35+ yards to let Iowa State escape Fort Worth with a win.
“I can’t really say where it really happened, I would just say the biggest thing is just communication, making sure everybody is on the same page,” Moehrig explained. “If we can communicate, then those big plays don’t happen.”
He expects that to be tidied up by the time this weekend’s contest kicks off at 11 a.m. Saturday.
“I’d said probably just fine tuning our communication. You've probably heard me speak on interviews before about the communication aspect of this defense, it's probably one of the most important things we can do. If we don't have communication, our defense will fall apart,” Moehrig said. “So I think just fine tuning the little things, you know, communicating better and that starts with me. If we can communicate better, we play faster. So I'd say we work on communication, we should be good.”
