Team mottos are tricky things. One year, it’s Prove Them Wrong. The next, it’s Prove Them Right.

Or, for Gary Patterson, it’s both, every season.

“You use both sides of that every year,” Patterson admitted at his Tuesday press conference, which drew national media members from ESPN, Sports Illustrated and Fox Sports, among others. “I don’t think you ever get to a situation where you’re just playing one side of that phrase. You’re trying to prove everybody right that believes in us, and you’ve got a whole bunch that you’re trying to prove wrong,”

Despite No. 2 TCU’s preseason ranking in both the Associated Press and coaches’ polls, Patterson sees skeptics.

“There’s a lot of people that don’t believe TCU belongs at No. 2 or that we can beat Minnesota or that we can win the Big 12 or any of the above.”

Patterson listed a slew of factors that could trip up the Horned Frogs at Thursday night’s season opener in Minneapolis or during the rest of the 2015 season, which features road games to potential “graveyard” sites in Ames, Lubbock, Stillwater, Norman and Manhattan:

– Minnesota is a good team that challenged eventual champion Ohio State last year
– TCF Bank Stadium will be sold out and loud
– Golden Gopher coach Jerry Kill and his staff have been together many years and have had months to plan for the Frogs
– Minnesota’s defense has seven starters returning
– The Gophers’ offense is more athletic in 2015
– Minnesota has nothing to lose and will employ a number of trick plays

Being the favorite isn’t a familiar position for the coach or his players, so they’re preparing as though they aren’t. Earlier in the day, senior quarterback and Heisman Trophy contender Trevone Boykin said the Frogs have to play like underdogs.

Trevone Boykin meets with the media prior to TCU’s matchup against Minnesota in the 2015 season opener.

“That’s the only way we try to approach it, like our backs are against the wall,” he said. “When you’ve got that bull’s-eye on your back and that ranking, you never play like that.”

When an ESPN reporter suggested to Patterson that the Frogs are not underdogs but very much in the national spotlight, the coach interrupted.

“By whose opinion? You create that personality inside your office,” he said. “Last year, they told us we weren’t supposed to be any good. They picked us 70th. The biggest thing for us to understand is that everybody is giving [us] their best shot.”

TCU, he said, must forget about expectations and last year’s statistics and focus on playing its best, and finding a way to win games.

“Our biggest thing is not to have style points,” he said. “Worst thing that can happen to us is we [feel like we] have to play like the No. 2 team in the country. We only have to worry about that at the end of the season. We’ve got to find a way to win each ball game each week. How do we leave Minneapolis with a one-point victory? If it can be 25 points, great. But we’re not trying to say we’ll live up to a No. 2 ranking. All we’re trying to do is win.”

Despite last year’s 30-7 victory at home against the Gophers, the Frogs have a tougher job this season, junior receiver Ty Slanina said. “They’re a very good team. They’re very athletic. Very smart. Very good at disguising coverages.”

The coach likes what he sees in his team, which he described as “calm.” He mentioned that key players have stayed after practice for extra film work, and the team collectively asked to continue practice in the sun, rather than move into the cooler indoor facility. He said he has pushed the 2015 squad to grow up and play physically.

Added Patterson, “If we get beat by Minnesota, it won’t be because we thought we’re something we’re not.”

His defense, which replaces six starters, will have at least one freshman at each position group this year. The defense will also be without two contributors, whom the coach refused to name. However, the depth chart, released late Tuesday, was missing defensive end James McFarland and cornerback DeShawn Raymond. (On offense, receiver Deanté Gray is unlikely to play.)

Still, Patterson is optimistic long-term. “This defense, every week, if we can stay healthy, is going to get better and better and better. I still uphold that we’re faster than we were. We have youth at places we wish we were older. But they’ve all rolled up their sleeves and worked hard.”

On offense, Patterson believes the Frogs can be even better than last year’s record-setting unit. Guided by co-coordinators Doug Meacham and Sonny Cumbie, the Frogs jumped to second in the nation by scoring 46.5 points per game after ranking No. 89 (25.1 points per game) in 2013.

“A lot of people felt like we snuck up on them last year,” Boykin acknowledged.

But Minnesota and the rest of TCU’s 2015 opponents have now had an offseason to study the Frog’s Air Raid attack.

“They’ve watched probably every game on us,” Boykin said of the Gophers. “I know they’re going to come out with a good game plan. They probably watched a few games where we didn’t do some stuff so good, and they’re going to try to do the same things [as the defenses did in those games].”

Year two will be about going mach-speed, Slanina said. “We’re able to go faster now with a year under our belt,” Slanina said. “We execute a lot better than what we once did. So we feel very confident in our offense and what we can do with it.”

Boykin joked that if people knew just how fast Meacham tries to get the Frogs to play, they would think it was “ridiculous.” But the quarterback said the team has a much better grasp of the offense than it did a year ago, which allows him to run a wider selection of plays.

The Frogs will also have new weapons, especially running back Shaun Nixon, who was lost a year ago to a knee injury.

“We’ve pushed [the team] to do everything that we’ve needed to do, to try and play at the level of a team that’s ranked where we are,” he said. “Then we’ll see where we’re at when we get done with the ballgame, and then we’ll go forward.”