One of the great ‘soft” skills needed in football coaching is the art of relationship building and TCU has lost one of its great defensive players, due to the pull of a coach-player relationship. It’s up to new head coach Sonny Dykes to create new relationships with student athletes still on the roster and with incoming recruits and transfer players.
TCU is losing DE Ochaun Mathis to the mythical transfer portal today as he’s stepping into this mysterious machine and where he will land – nobody knows, at least not yet. Mathis was at TCU for four years and the former three star recruit out of Manor, TX was an intimidating and productive 6’5” edge rusher for the Horned Frogs. Participating in 46 games across his TCU career, Mathis had an outstanding year in 2020 with nine sacks, 12 tackles for losses and 44 total tackles that had him on track to be an All -Big 12 consensus player going into 2021.
Mathis will always be remembered for his three sack first half against Texas Tech and his efforts against OU in Norman this past season. However, the holes in the defensive line this season mounted up and Mathis was only able to register the two sacks against OU as his only major stats for the season. Mathis literally and figuratively stood out on the Horned Frogs D line and his presence, leadership and experience will certainly be missed
As I mentioned earlier, football coaching is as much about relationship building as it is about the X’s and O’s (those of you familiar with the saying – it’s about the Jimmy’s and Joe’s, not the X’s and O’s) and former head coach Gary Patterson mastered the art of relationship building during his years in Fort Worth. Ochaun Mathis chose TCU over OU and Oklahoma State specifically to play for Patterson and his firing and potential re-hire at Texas leads most football analysts to think that Mathis will follow his former head coach and start wearing burnt orange this coming season. As the transfer portal plots keep thickening, it will almost become commonplace to see familiar faces on the field in unfamiliar uniforms come the first few weeks of the 2022 season. All we can do is wish Ochaun Mathis the best of luck we will be seeing you somewhere next season.
