The team of Brian Estridge, left, and John Denton will call its last football game tonight.
Win or lose, tonight will mark the end of an era at TCU.
John Denton will be on his final game as color analyst in the Horned Frogs Sports Network radio booth. After 35 seasons, Denton is stepping aside to become the executive director of the Flying T Club, a name, image, and likeness collective supporting TCU student-athletes. It is not associated with the university.
If my math is correct, the Frogs’ national championship game tonight will be Denton’s 414th. In all, Denton has been part of TCU for 42 years, beginning as a student athlete with the football program in the fall of 1980. He has been calling TCU basketball for the past 22 years and will continue those duties until the end of the season.
He officially retired from the university on Jan. 4
Now, what’s really funky is how this part of his career is coming to a close.
Denton’s first game on Sept. 10, 1988? Georgia, between Sanford Stadium’s legendary hedges.
Some would call that a weird coincidence. Others would term it destiny.
That stuff is above my pay grade.
However, that first game was a 38-10 Georgia victory. It was obviously a different time and place for TCU, then under coach Jim Wacker and still limping back from calamitous NCAA sanctions that set the program back several years. The Frogs had only recently begun to creep back into legitimacy after years of losing. TCU went onto finish 4-7 and 2-5 in the Southwest Conference with victories over Rice and Baylor.
Georgia was a top-10 team and overwhelmed an underwhelming TCU defense.
If there is to be a different outcome tonight, Denton believes it will be on that side of the ball for TCU.
He told KTCK/1310 AM The Ticket in an interview this morning that the Frogs’ need to make a stat their friend: turnover margin. TCU is a plus-9 on the season. Georgia is a minus-2.
“That’s the stat that popped out to me,” Denton said while on with The Musers with Craig Miller, George Dunham and Gordon Keith.
If TCU can create some turnovers that they can convert into points, then “it’s game on.”
“Field position will be really key,” Denton said. “That’s a key, key area tonight.”
