from dallasnews.....
From the TCU perspective, Monday's game at Cincinnati will prove more difficult on at least one level than last year's opener against the fourth-ranked Cornhuskers.
"You don't have a feel for them," coach Gary Patterson said of Cincinnati, a team TCU did not face last season, its first in Conference USA. "Everybody's been watching Nebraska all their life, and they know what they're up against. You just don't have any way of knowing how competitive they [the Bearcats] really are or what kind of emotion they play with."
The Frogs know this: The Bearcats return 16 starters from a team that made its second consecutive bowl appearance last year, and bigger things are expected this season. Quarterback Gino Guidugli made an impressive splash last fall, becoming the program's first freshman voted team MVP. Virtually every skill player around him appears high on at least one of the school's all-time statistical charts.
"They probably have the best skill we'll play against this year," said Patterson, whose team expects to be in the hunt for a fifth consecutive bowl bid. "One of the two best, at least."
The other key aspect to Monday's game is its importance. There's no comparison in that sense.
Playing Nebraska on a national stage represented the kind of exposure TCU and C-USA need in their continuing quest to move up the college football ladder.
TCU players recognize that. But they say even the 2000 season opener at Nevada ? a non-televised game against a weaker team that had just moved up to the WAC and Division I-A ? was more important.
"The conference championship is what you play for," senior cornerback Jason Goss said. "You can lose that by losing one game."
Cincinnati will see it that way, as well. If not a conference title, the two teams at least should be jockeying for bowl bids three months from now, so Monday's outcome carries considerable weight.
article on TCU backs--
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/sports/colleges/3981782.htm
