TCU Athletics
Jeremy Payne celebrates one of is two touchdowns with an adoring crowd.
First of all, Thanksgiving weekend in football season should be reserved for archrivals TCU and Baylor to confront their differences — ecumenical, football, or otherwise.
Not doing so is a violation of the spirit of hating one’s neighbor. And let’s be honest: trying to live a life grounded in Scripture while competing in cutthroat college athletics — with a Joel Osteen–sized collection plate at play — is no small feat, especially when the competition tests both your discipline and your sanctification.
Lots of gray area and mixed messages in this messy little Western Civilization of ours.
Speaking of talking out of both sides of the mouth, I received this text message at halftime of TCU’s regular-season finale against Cincinnati on Saturday from a buddy and barstool sports critic who has had lots of opinions on TCU football this season — well, every season — and has never liked Kendal Briles because, well, he’s a Briles, son of onetime Baylor football lord Art, aka the devil incarnate.
Hey, 31 points at halftime is pretty damn impressive.
So, we’re not calling for Kendal Briles’ head this week? Or Sonny Dykes’? (It’s no wonder the coaching circle is so tight. They all have in common the threat of being put in front of a firing squad at one point — several points — in time.)
It must be hell being accountable as an amateur sports critic — we’ll call them “Sports Karen” — on the social channels, filling out figurative Yelp reviews on the days either the ball bounces the wrong way for TCU or — gasp — the days the Horned Frogs have the gall to not play well.
Since when, Adam and Eve, could we not trust the human condition to be perfect?
AI
This is AI generated. William Howard Taft, notable alum of Cincinnati, did not appear at Amon G. Carter Stadium in the form of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
And so it is: TCU must live with a terrible 8-4 season after a 45-23 victory over Cincinnati on Saturday.
A little-known fact: The best coaching jobs are often done when things aren’t going well — when the “dangling carrots” teams play for, rankings and conference championships, are removed one by one, as at TCU this season.
A friend of mine who coached on Moe Iba’s staff 30-plus years ago fondly recalls Moe’s first season, a long 9-19 campaign in 1987–88. Lots of adversity. “Our best coaching job was getting to nine wins in 1988,” he jokes, but he’s not joking.
If F.A. Dry, who had 12 wins in six seasons, had ever gotten to eight wins in consecutive seasons — much less a College Football Playoff championship season — he might still be at TCU at age 94.
The fans — short for fanatics — will be fans. It’s a good thing they care, but it’s like the kid whose parent says, “The belt is coming out only because I care.” Do you have to care that much?
“I thought our last two weeks of practice were exceptional,” said head coach Sonny Dykes. “Just really proud of the guys for doing that. Sometimes it's hard to do when all the motivating carrots that are out there dangling in front of 'em kind of disappear, and I think it just tells you a lot about those guys and our program and the culture that we have.”
Dykes called Saturday’s win the most complete game the Frogs have played since rearranging Belichick and his girlfriend’s furniture way back on Labor Day.
Quarterback Josh Hoover had more touchdowns (4) than incompletions (3), going 19-for-22 for 316 yards. Eric McAlister of Azle collected most of those yards, finishing with 101 receiving yards and moving into second place on the single-season charts with 1,121 yards on the year. By going over 100 yards for the sixth time this season, he tied Josh Doctson’s 2015 mark for the most in a single season in TCU history.
Had there been no time limit, Jeremy Payne might still be running. The running back had 174 yards on 26 carries — the most for a TCU runner since Kendre Miller’s 185 at Texas Tech in 2021. Payne’s 218 yards from scrimmage were the most by a TCU running back since Robert Merrill’s 231 at Houston in 2003.
“It has been a tough couple of weeks,” Hoover said. “I'm not going to sit up here and lie. When you lose three games or two games in a row, then the third game, we had a bunch of bad stuff happen, didn’t play very well to our capabilities late in the game … it can kind of take a toll on you. And, so, I think over the last three weeks I've been really just trying to keep my head down and keep on working, keep on pushing and understand that at some point we're going to break through it and have a really good game.”
No one with the program will tell you they’re ecstatic about the season.
Coming off a road victory at West Virginia, the Frogs — like everyone else battling injuries — came home but couldn’t hold an 11-point lead in a frustrating loss to Iowa State. They went into a lion’s den in Provo the next week, getting beaten by No. 12 BYU.
A lot of teams would have folded up the tents, packed it up, and quietly retreated from 2025.
But TCU didn’t. With only two games left and little tangible things to play for, they not only regrouped, they got better, ending the regular season with a victory on the road over ranked Houston and, on Saturday, over Cincinnati — a seven-win team with, like TCU, five Big 12 victories.
That’s an indication of good coaching and a good culture within a program.
It’s difficult to win college football games. There are no participation trophies. It’s a highly competitive field with only one winner week after week.
I like my sports competitions to reflect life itself. Life is often sloppy. Lots of banged-up ankles. Lots of potholes. Plenty of wrong turns, bad bounces, and bad decisions. The things you never see coming come at you like shingles in an F5 tornado. However, when you do finally hit open field, it’s usually because you kept your feet moving long after your scripted plans went up in flames. You keep going.
Ron Washington, the erstwhile manager of the Texas Rangers and noted sports philosopher in North Texas, once remarked many years ago on a squeeze bunt attempt that went terribly wrong for the Rangers in the late innings: “Sometimes it works … sometimes it don’t.”
He shrugged his shoulders. Next question.
Indeed, Wash, indeed. That doesn’t mean, sports cynics, it wasn’t the right call.
