TCU Athletics
TCU football players, including Max Duggan, sitting, right, react to news they were going to the College Football Playoff as the No. 3 seed.
On Sunday, we saw with our own eyes the workings of a Christmas miracle with the College Football Playoff Committee actually getting it right.
That truly merited one of those Jim Wacker unbeeeeeelievables.
The Horned Frogs’ inclusion in the CFP was justice served despite a 31-28 overtime loss to Kansas State in the Paul Finebaum Big 12 Championship Game in Jerry’s Colosseum in Arlington on Saturday. Kansas State is a good football team that could compete with anyone in the top 10, if you asked me (which you didn’t).
The No. 3 Frogs (12-1) and the their mind-expanding Hypnotoad will travel to the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona for a Dec. 31 national semifinal against No. 2 Michigan, 13-0 after a mere walkthrough over overmatched, four-loss (now five-loss) Purdue on the Big Ten Championship Game.
TCU became the first school in all of Stephen F. Austin’s Texas to advance to the CFP.
“For sure I do,” TCU coach Sonny Dykes said when asked on Saturday if his team belonged among the prestigious four. “We went through the Big 12, 12-0. We've been figuring out ways to win games like this all year, and today we weren't able to do it. I think we're certainly deserving.
“I think the league is one of the best leagues in the country, to go through undefeated in the league, certainly we ought to get in. I don't think we should be punished for coming to the Big 12 Championship Game. I don't think the way this stuff is designed to, you know, the conference championship games, I don't think are designed to punish teams and prevent them from getting in the playoffs.”
Had the Frogs not gotten in, the faithful might very well have marched with pitchforks in hand to the land of Finebaum, wherever that might be. If I were a guessing man, I’d say Flin Flon, Manitoba. I’ve been told by those who know that eternal life is either Heaven or Flin Flon.
As part of his criticism of the Big 12, Mr. Finebaum, an elitist by any standard, said “none of us are going to be watching” the Big 12 game until his employer, which was broadcasting the game, presumably told him to shut up. Anybody who took that advice, missed one helluva game. (Mr. Finebaum, if you make it down here, we’ll work this out over a budding friendship and a drink on us. That's the way we roll. We don't do duels anymore.)
That game turned out to be a big reason the CFP committee had no choice but to include the Frogs. It’s true beyond any reasonable doubt that TCU’s credentials were better than any of the other three teams not named “Georgia.”
Despite that fact, TCU will enter the CFP an underdog, mostly because it enters the tournament the least among the others as a national brand. And certainly, the Frogs will need to play better than they did Saturday. How they managed to stay in the game despite a game full of mistakes speaks to the character of the Frogs. Yet, TCU will need more than David’s slingshot and a sack of rocks to knock off Michigan, first, and then, presumably, Georgia.
Curiosity alone will draw the viewers ESPN craves. If it’s diversity one craves, TCU presents it as a relative unknown. It’s the purple Frogs who have crashed an exclusive party that generally only includes football’s bluebloods.
How exclusive? Many believed Alabama, with two losses, would still get in. Even with playing in the worst of the so-called Power 5, the Big Ten got two teams in.
By all appearances, Ohio State got in by default.
Finebaum, a chief ESPN windbag, can criticize the Big 12 all he wants, but the Big Ten can get two teams in the final four? Have you seen that conference? All Michigan or Ohio State have to do each year is defeat each other. That’s the only game on its schedule they have to worry about losing. Occasionally, you can throw in Penn State.
The last thing TCU wants is bulletin-board material for Michigan. So, unlike Paul Finebaum, I’ll shut up about it. No one is served well if, by chance, this little piece of prose makes its way to Ann Arbor, headquarters of the Wolverines. (Ho-ho-ho.)
TCU also has a compelling story line for the networks and national media to tell: Max Duggan, our Frog Prince.
It’s been repeated ad infinitum, but it bears repeating. Duggan willed the Frogs literally within inches, perhaps, of another comeback win on Saturday.
He also might very well be the best player in the country, so distinguished by the Heisman Trophy. There was a loud, impassioned noise mere weeks ago for Duggan to be invited to New York for the presentation. On Monday, Duggan was invited, notified that he had finished in the top four of the voting.
Duggan could very well be the winner.
If he were to win, it was the tying drive on Saturday that did it for him.
Down 28-20, Duggan, who didn’t have his best game, 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.
It was nothing short of John Wayne Hollywood heroism, Duggan on his knees in exhaustion as he crossed the goal line. That effort, along with the picturesque finish, speaks effusively.
J.J. Watt, the NFL star, will apparently be tuned in for the playoffs. He was among those wringing his hands over the play calling in OT. To Max or not to Max, that was the question.
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. He was overcome by all the emotions, not just of that game, but of the journey itself. Memories of the highs and low of the lows — he’s had many more lows on the football field, he noted, in his first three season — swept over him.
I was down there and couldn’t help but know how my mother felt all those years watching games.
“I think, if we got in, we would give one heck of a fight, and I think our competitiveness would take over and things of that sort,” Duggan said Saturday, before breaking down. “I wanted that one really bad.
“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.”
The voting for the Heisman started on Nov. 28. It ends today.
If voters waited until after this weekend’s games to cast their votes, Duggan could be in for the highest of individual highs.
Duggan has the numbers. He has passed for more than 3,300 yards and 30 touchdowns. He has thrown only four interceptions all season, albeit one was a bad one on Saturday. He has rushed for more than 400 yards and six touchdowns.
C.J. Stroud, the Ohio State quarterback, was a favorite, but he didn’t have the stage offered by conference championship games, and the last time we saw him was in a two-interception loss to Michigan. Also mixed in in his last four games was a horrid start against Northwestern. But his numbers are comparable to Duggans. Stroud has 3,340 yards and 37 touchdowns passing. He has effectively done nothing as a runner.
The numbers of Caleb Williams, the USC quarterback, are only slightly better than Duggan's. Williams has passed for just a tick over 4,000 yards and 37 TDs. He's rushed or 372 yards and 10 TDs. Williams was considered The Favorite, but he misused his opportunity this weekend badly.
Williams was good in his team’s bad loss to Utah in the Pac-12 Championship Game, but a stunt with his fingernails particularly backfired.
Williams sported nail art with the words “F--- UTAH.” It was a repeat of what he had done the week before with Notre Dame. Bad karma saying that about Our Lady, in my opinion. Whether there was any intercession, I don't know, but it made him a less-than-sympathetic figure in the Trojans’ loss.
In life, it’s always good to be likable.
If the championship stage and likability are factors in the voting, Duggan is a slam dunk as the Heisman Trophy winner.
No one has any faith in the voters, of course, for the same reasons some were “shocked” TCU got in the CFP altogether. A player from TCU simply is not supposed to win the Heisman.
Christmas miracles, though, run in twos, don’t they?
