TCU Athletics
Max Duggan is not done leading the way.
The year 2022 served as affirmation for the words a wise man once dropped on a team so many years ago: It’s amazing what can happen if you just show up.
For your consideration: Max Duggan, devoted knight of TCU football.
The achievements this year of Duggan, the Shakespearean protagonist in our college football season who takes on would-be tacklers the way a Marine operates in a bayonet assault course, truly merit cheer, even a standing ovation.
In accounting for more than 3,700 total yards and 36 touchdowns, and only four interceptions in 368 passing attempts, Duggan was named the Big 12’s Offensive Player of the Year.
That was followed by the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, as well as the Davey O’Brien Award, the nation’s most coveted award presented to college quarterbacks.
He also finished second in the Heisman Trophy balloting and, quite frankly, through a process of objective and prejudicial reasoning, I believe he should have won the damn thing.
Oh, and as part of a 12-1 record, he led the Horned Frogs to victories over both Oklahoma and Texas for the first time in the same season in school history. All on the way to the College Football Playoffs, an unthinkable place — a veritable neverland — for a team picked to finish seventh in its own conference.
The No. 3 Frogs take on No. 2 Michigan in the Fiesta Bowl at 3 p.m. on Saturday. No. 1 Georgia and No. 4 Ohio State play afterward in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta. The winners will meet the national championship game in Los Angeles.
To get there required Duggan, as good and tough of a competitor as we’ve seen.
That alone makes for the best letter Duggan ever won in his life as a football player.
However, that’s not why Duggan became a part of TCU lore in 2022. Duggan became a legend because of who he is, and that is something college football needs more of.
This all happened because Duggan bothered to continue showing up.
Duggan could have quit and left TCU in the face of a bunch of adversity, a heaping helping of hardship, and more than a dollop of disappointment. That seems to be the name of the game for many college athletes these days.
The transfer portal is a platform to flee to perceived greener pastures.
Before this season, Duggan had had his share of unfulfilled hopes.
Heart surgery before his sophomore season is documented. Underperforming football teams were, too. Just last season, the Frogs went 5-7 while he played with a broken foot so painful his doctors were in wonder that he was able to get around, much less run around. That same season, his head football coach was sent to the figurative guillotine at midseason.
This was not the hopes and dreams fulfilled when he left Council Bluffs, Iowa, for the Big 12 in Fort Worth.
And things didn’t exactly look much better when he found himself No. 2 on the depth chart, the backup to Chandler Morris to start the season. This after three seasons as the starter. Even then Duggan didn’t consider quitting. Many of his peers in the same position would have packed for the portal. Instead, Duggan vowed to do what was best for his team in his new role.
And, he said, he would do it well.
That mentality brought head coach Sonny Dykes to tears when discussing the situation after the SMU game. By that time, with Morris hurt in the season opener, Duggan had established himself as the starter after three games.
“I’m probably as proud of Max as any player I’ve been around,” Dykes said then. “He never had a bad practice. He never pouted. He never thought of himself one time. How many people can you truly say that about? I’m kind of emotional about it, honestly. He’s the way you’d want your son to handle that situation.”
There are very few people you can say that about, and not simply in college athletics, but anywhere in any profession.
That mentality is why he has been such an effective leader on the field.
“It’s just our guys’ undying belief in him and our guys trying to play their tails off for him because they have so much respect and admiration for what he brings to our football program every day,” Dykes said at a media gathering in November.
The Big 12 Championship Game wasn’t Duggan’s finest game, but it turned out to be his finest hour, again, because he refused to quit. He struggled to find receivers and was off the mark at times when he did find them. He threw a bad interception in the end zone that turned the momentum back to Kansas State.
Yet, he led them back from two scores down.
Down 28-20, Duggan singlehandedly drove his team 80 yards, accounting for 75 himself, a touchdown, and the 2-point conversion pass. If you account for penalties backing up the Frogs, Duggan accounted for 90 yards on the drive.
The effort — along with the picturesque finish, Duggan on his knees in exhaustion as he crossed the goal line — was nothing short of John Wayne Hollywood heroism.
The game came down to the longest half-yard, as it turned out. As one of our favorite sports philosophers — he managed major-league baseball here and went by “Wash” — once said: Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
In the postgame press conference, Duggan was in tears over the loss and his role in the outcome. He was almost certainly overcome by all the emotions, not just of that game, but of the journey itself.
“I wanted that one really bad,” he said before breaking down. “There's nothing more that I want than to bring this school a championship. Today we fell short. I didn't make enough plays to help us offensively that kind of put us in that spot. There's nothing more than I want for us than to get to a school championship.”
Duggan announced two weeks ago that he will forgo an extra year granted by the NCAA to every player who participated in the 2020 Covid season.
The results were one thing. The commitment and loyalty are what we’ll all remember about his four years in Fort Worth.
Max Duggan: First in the hearts of his fellow Horned Frogs.
