TCU Athletics
Max Duggan leading the charge.
Well, this TCU football season has turned historic after that staggering finish on the Brazos on Saturday, which brought to mind my fading Latin.
Aut inveniam viam aut faciam.
I will either find a way or make one.
A moment of disclosure: I had my doubts they would get through Texas and Baylor, both on the road, unscathed and in one piece. However, by the grace of … . I'll let you finish that sentence.
But, alas, I was wrong … again. We all saw what happened in Waco against Toby's Business College. I'm not learned enough in word combinations to describe it adequately. Exactly why I stay at arm’s length from bookies.
So, we now have two things at play: TCU’s national championship aspirations; and quarterback Max Duggan’s Heisman Trophy hopes, considered a long shot by most.
Yet, he deserves serious consideration. An analyst on Saturday even said Duggan should be invited to the trophy presentation on Dec. 10 in New York City.
“There’s no question he deserves to be there,” TCU coach Sonny Dykes said on Tuesday during his weekly session with the press.
One doesn’t simply get invited. The top four finishers in the Heisman voting are invited.
CJ Stroud and Caleb Williams, quarterbacks from Ohio State and Southern California, are believed to be the favorites. Michigan running back Blake Corum is next, as far as betting favorites.
TCU’s Davey O’Brien is the only Heisman winner in school history. More and more believe Duggan, this devout knight of TCU football, should be among the discerning voters’ deliberations.
Consider: He’s passed for 2,858 yards and 26 touchdowns, while adding 291 yards and five touchdowns rushing. And he is absolutely the face of TCU’s 11-0 team, particularly after leading the Horned Frogs down the field for the game-winning stunner in a 29-28 victory on the strength of Griffin Kell’s field goal as the clock wound to zero at Baylor.
A quick aside: I'm as big of a big Sonny Dykes fan as you'll find. Loved the hire a year ago, but how on God's green earth did Duggan start the season as the backup quarterback? Well, that's why he does what he does, and I do what I do.
OK, carrying on.
With each victory TCU proves it belongs among the top-ranked teams in the country, despite its critics, who with each passing week find themselves shorter and shorter on legitimacy.
“They can say whatever they want to say,” Dykes said Saturday of his team’s critics. “Our job’s to win football games. We’ve done our job up to this point. And, you know, hopefully we’ll do it again Saturday. And what anybody says I couldn’t care less about.”
The Frogs are expected to remain at No. 4 when Tuesday’s latest College Football Playoff rankings are released.
The Frogs have checked off one of the season’s big goals: a place in the Big 12 championship game. And with it, though they won’t say it, they have likely checked off another, which is to tell the prognosticators where they can stick their preseason predictions.
The smartest guys in the room picked the Frogs to finished seventh in the Big 12.
However, all that being done, there are even bigger things to attend to now. TCU’s flirtation with a first national championship since 1938 got very serious, Facebook complicated even, beginning with the suplex takedown of the Longhorns on a chilly fall Saturday night in November.
Only the band’s march down Sixth Street blasting its rendition of Mexican folklore’s “La Cucaracha” would have made TCU’s takeover of the 40 Acres more fulsome two Saturdays ago. Not that it wasn’t as splendid in every way as it was, that victory over Texas, the state’s flagship public university, that wasn’t nearly as close as a 17-10 score would suggest.
The victory by the “cockroaches,” the moniker the Frogs have worn with honor since a miffed Texas coach Darrell Royal so named them after spoiling the Longhorns’ national championship hopes in 1961, made everyone trying to ignore them take notice.
Even the CFP committee.
The body of rainmakers, which decides the four schools that will vie for the national championship was slow to recognize — or perhaps reluctant to acknowledge — the Horned Frogs’ ascent up college football’s Mount Sinai under Dykes, the first-year coach.
Triumph over the Longhorns on their turf — and on that stage in front of more than 100,000 orange people — with its brand, its history, its gold and PUF fund, not to mention our old coach in service to the enemy, represented the signature victory up to that point in the season.
To date, the Frogs’ five victories over ranked opponents in 2022 equaled the combined total of the other three undefeated teams, Georgia (2), Ohio State (2), and Michigan (1), all ranked ahead of TCU. TCU has also defeated eight teams that are currently .500 or better. Georgia has five and Ohio State has six.
On the other hand, those three are all college football bluebloods with the coveted national followings the networks have a messianic adoration for.
It’s why many are skeptical that the Frogs, the smallest of the top six ranked schools, ultimately will receive a fair hearing before the CFP board.
Money, money, money in the form of bodies — that is, big enrollments, even bigger alumni bases, and a national base of fans — in front of flat screens is what moves the needle, not a résumé of merit. At least that’s what the cynics say.
And it’s difficult not to be a cynic after what happened in 2014, the inaugural season of the CFP. The one-loss Horned Frogs were ranked No. 3 in the penultimate ranking only to fall out of the top four altogether, to No. 6, in the final poll, despite a 55-3 victory over Iowa State.
It was a whiskey-tango-foxtrot moment.
Despite it all this year, the Frogs, just like before the season started, are still underdogs. Critics of this TCU team cite a habit to fall behind early in games only to fight back, sometimes from double-digit deficits, to come back and win.
A squeaker in West Virginia raised eyebrows, but as Dykes noted, those same Mountaineers beat Baylor and Oklahoma on that same field.
The critics also note a Big 12 not as strong competitively as in past years or in comparison with the other Power 5s. (The Big Ten? Really?) When Texas and Oklahoma aren’t strong, and neither are, the conference is perceived as weaker.
Conventional wisdom is TCU will have to win out in order to achieve a place among the final four. One loss will leave them outside looking in. A regular-season finale at home against Iowa State is next on the docket this Saturday followed by the conference championship game at AT&T Stadium against, in all likelihood, Kansas State. That’s far from a gimme putt.
“The thing with us, it’s like anything else, you’ve just got to figure out how to win,” Dykes said. “If you can win, I truly believe the rest of the stuff will take care of itself. If you lose a game, then all of the sudden there’s a conversation about all these different things [that need to happen to get in the playoff]. You want to try to avoid that if you can.
“You just got to do everything you can to make sure something like that doesn’t happen to you again [like 2014]. If you win your games, it puts you in a good spot.”
As for the players, a team led offensively by a triumvirate of star triplets Duggan, running back Kendre Miller, and wide receiver Quentin Johnson — both dealing with injuries — they seem to be unaffected by the critics or the prospects suddenly in front of them.
No one has been dizzied by success. This team has been so good and defied adversity because it’s grounded, starting with Duggan, a senior who epitomizes the maturity and grit of this team.
“We were picked seventh, so obviously people didn’t think we were going to be very good,” Dykes said. “For us it’s always been let’s do the best we can, play hard for each other and when it’s all said and done let’s add it up and figure it out at the end. Most years it’s hard to do.
“Typically, most teams start talking about bowl games and rankings, talking about if this happens and that happens. I have never heard that one time with any players on our team. Never heard them talk about the conference championship or rankings. I think our guys really like to play football. The other stuff, I think, they see as a byproduct of football. That’s what makes this team fun to be around and be a part of.”
