TCU is 2-0 and heavily favored to beat SMU a week after the No. 20 Horned Frogs’ convincing 28-7 road win over Arkansas.
However, TCU head coach Gary Patterson isn’t overconfident.
“We don’t have a game that’s on our schedule that we can’t get beat,” Patterson said earlier this week during his weekly news conference.
SMU also is 2-0 with early season wins over Stephen F. Austin and North Texas.
Patterson said he expects the Mustangs to play with lots of determination.
“I think I saw where they say they’re trying to win the Metroplex trophy, because they beat North Texas,” Patterson said. “That’s one of their goals.”
TCU and SMU began playing each other 102 years ago and have become archrivals. An annual award is given to the winner of the game between the two schools called “The Iron Skillet.” The winning school receives a trophy that’s literally an iron skillet with a plaque in the middle of the pan that states the two schools began playing each other in 1915.
Patterson called Saturday’s meeting between the two schools “an emotional game.”
“Any time you get into an emotional game, you have to be ready to play,” Patterson said.
SMU is TCU’s second-most played series. The Horned Frogs’ 96 meetings with the Mustangs trail only Baylor (112).
Other than the two seasons (1987-88) SMU did not field a team, the 2006 campaign represented the only time TCU and SMU have not met since 1925.
The Horned Frogs hold a 49-40-7 edge over the Mustangs in a series that began with a 43-0 TCU win in Fort Worth in 1915. The Horned Frogs are 27-18-5 versus the Mustangs in Fort Worth and 22-22-2 in Dallas.
TCU has won nine of the last 10 games with SMU and 15 of 17. Last year, TCU routed SMU 33-3 in Dallas.
This weekend, TCU faces SMU at 2:30 p.m. at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth.