The seeds of TCU’s unexpectedly awesome season started as an early new-year resolution of sorts. In December 2013, after 13 seasons as the Horned Frogs head coach and two years in the Big 12, Gary Patterson realized he needed a new offense to keep up in the high-scoring league.

The 2013 season had been a frustrating 4-8 — Patterson’s worst as a Frog — and he knew that the football program required an overhaul. No longer could the team’s stout defenses carry the Frogs alone. The coach had to embrace change.

By mid-December, Patterson found the help he needed and brought aboard new co-offensive coordinators Doug Meacham and Sonny Cumbie. Their job was to install a Horned Frog version of the Air Raid.

One year later, TCU surprised the college football world with a 12-1 season, a top-5 ranking, a co-championship in the Big 12 and a dominating performance in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, one of the New Year’s Six games of the inaugural College Football Playoff.

Patterson’s humbling realization and the team’s subsequent turnaround made the Frogs one of the season’s best stories, and they netted the coach a slew of national awards. In December, the Associated Press named him the coach of the year, joining Alabama’s Nick Saban as the only two-time recipient. (Patterson received the honor in 2009.)

Patterson also garnered the 2014 Eddie Robinson, Woody Hayes and ESPN/Home Depot awards and was tabbed the best head man by the Walter Camp Football Foundation, CBSSports.com and Scout.com. His own conference selected him as the Chuck Neinas Big 12 Coach of the Year, while the Bobby Dodd Award and Paul “Bear” Bryant Award picked him as a finalist.

“Head coaches get too much attention,” Patterson said. “That means really that you had a good team — good players and really a great coaching staff.”

But the numbers don’t lie: TCU went from being ranked 105^th in the nation in yards per play and 106^th in yards per game in 2013 to ranking ninth and fourth, respectively, in 2014. The Frogs raised their scoring average from 25 a contest to 46. The TCU offense broke seven school records.

“It was a big jump for us. Thirty-two years of my 33 years (in coaching) I’ve been part of run, play action, play good defense. Special teams,” Patterson said. “This was outside of my comfort zone.”

Patterson’s perceptive hunch that a good defense and an up-tempo offense could co-exist paid off. The Frogs were in the hunt for a College Football Playoff spot and came into the final weekend of the 2014 season third in the selection-committee rankings. When the final rankings came out, the Frogs had tumbled, surprisingly, to sixth. Patterson and the team earned national praise for the respectful way they responded to the disappointment.

“We wanted to be in the playoff, but I’m not sure the way it all was handled that TCU didn’t gain even more from not being it in,” Patterson said. “There are a lot of positives that came out of how everything turned out.”

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