On a soggy field Saturday in Ireland, just before halftime of the season's first major college football game, a snapped ball sailed high over the TCU punter's head.
It wound up being kicked out the back of the end zone for a safety, and ESPN predictably showed multiple replays of this gaffe, from a variety of angles.
At that moment, coach Sonny Dykes and his Horned Frogs showed remarkable restraint.
Despite their established urges, they did not demand that ESPN pack up its cameras and leave the stadium.
This, in light of how TCU had handled unflattering media coverage heading into the game, represented real growth. It also reminded us of one of the most enjoyable parts of college football, which returned in sloppy earnest Saturday with the Horned Frogs' 15-10 loss to North Carolina at Dublin's Aviva Stadium.
No matter how much some coaches wish that it wouldn't, the truth about everybody's team always comes out this time of year.
It was fitting, in a way, that the first two teams in the NCAA's top subdivision to play this season were ones with well-documented recent difficulties in controlling their own narratives.
Last week, TCU rescinded the credentials of the only publication with a staffer covering the program on a full-time basis. And last year, North Carolina memorably scrapped plans for a weekly Hulu documentary on head coach Bill Belichick once the Tar Heels figured out they were going to lose more games than they'd win.
This is the way things tend to go in a sport where the harder coaches try to keep every detail of their program a state secret, the worse it tends to go for them. Years ago, I sat in a meeting with a first-year coach who warned reporters that he had investigators capable of sniffing out all potential leaks.
TCU safety Julius Simms, right, tackles North Carolina tight end Jelani Thurman during an NCAA college football game in Dublin, Ireland. Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison) (Peter Morrison/Associated Press)A few days later, after he conducted a similar meeting with players' families and warned them not to speak to the media, a local newspaper quoted an unnamed parent who described exactly what the coach said.
That particular tenure didn't end well. Most coaching tenures don't, because if they were going well, they probably wouldn't end. But it's always fun to watch another round of multimillionaires learn the same lessons that their predecessors finally did.
The grand, silly paradox of college football is that the whole sport is built upon generating attention, and the people who benefit most from that attention hate it. Programs need attention to pay coaches, and to fund rosters, and to build stadiums. They needed attention so badly, that they're willing to send teams like TCU and North Carolina all the way to Ireland to open the season, for some reason.
But far too often, they can't abide the questions that come with that attention. At North Carolina, which hired Belichick last year because it thought having a six-time Super Bowl champion on campus would create a splash, it's already reached the point where reporters seeking answers about ticket sales had to file public records requests, which according to The Athletic have so far gone unfulfilled.
Then there are the Horned Frogs, who apparently learned nothing from Barbra Streisand's efforts to keep aerial photographs of her California estate off of the internet. Earlier this offseason, the Fort Worth Star Telegram published a minor story about an incident in the TCU locker room. It was behind a paywall.
At the time, I didn't read it. You probably didn't read it. Most people who follow college football knew nothing about it.
But due to an apparent disagreement over the details of that reporting, last week TCU pulled the credential of the reporter from the newspaper whose founder, Amon Carter, graces the name of the Horned Frogs' home football stadium.
Now lots and lots of people know about a player getting kicked off the team, and lots and lots of people were ready to make the same jokes about Dykes kicking ESPN out of the stadium that I made at the top of this column.
They almost never learn. Last month, Colorado - coming off a 3-9 season under coach Deion Sanders - held an "open" practice in which every reporter and fan in attendance was required to turn over their phones, and in which nothing observed at the practice was allowed to be "reported, published, posted, broadcast or otherwise shared in any form, on any platform, at any time."
Presumably, this means the Buffaloes have developed the most incredible set of secret plays in the history of the game. So when they open their season next Saturday at Georgia Tech, they're all bound to work.
But if they don't?
Well, ESPN will be there, too. And when the truth comes out, as it always does, we'll see if Sanders lets the cameras stay.
SubscribeThere’s more to San Antonio with the Express-News. Subscribe today for just 25¢.This article originally published at As college football coaches try to control the narrative, the truth comes out on field.
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