1. Hills/Blake and Ulatoski/Ortiz. This matchup will determine the game, imo. Not only does Colts passer rating take a nose dive when he is throwing from under a pile. If the ASU game is any indication, he's frustrated right now and not in the right frame of mind. We MUST protect this house.
2. Variety. Spice of life. Against ASU we ran two main stunts on defense, what looks like two coverages at the most, and only a handful of offensive plays. Maybe this is who we are, although I hope not. TCU has the best defense we'll see this year, and we will need some new plays to beat them. Running a counter and thinking we're tricky will not work against these guys, they are just too fast for our slow developing plays. We can still be blown up by run blitzes so we'll need to hide the point of attack and add in some quick hitters like a straight handoff or speed option.
3. The Perma-key: Linebackers. They are facing a team without elite speed anywhere on offense so hopefully it won't look like they are wearing cement shoes while running on ice this week. They miss too many tackles, turning 2 yards gains into 7 yard gains. TCU won't have an elite passing game to take advantage of us so we are in a position to succeed here. We cannot let them extend drives on 3rd and 13 by letting a QB pull a Vince or by grabbing him by the facemask as he sprints by.
4. Colt. Colt needs to play well. The receivers will be tightly covered, and he has no room for error. We need a big game from him to win. He's shown he can get frustrated, which leads to bad things against good, fast defenses. Stay calm, take what they give you, and if one of them asks if you've hit puberty yet, just laugh it off.