Highlights: here
Final Stats: here
TCU head coach Sonny Dykes discusses the loss: here
TCU running back Emani Bailey discusses the loss: here
TCU quarterback Josh Hoover discusses the loss: here
TCU wide receiver Jo Jo Earle discusses the loss: here
Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables discusses the win: here
Oklahoma
defensive coordinator Ted Roof discusses the win: here
Oklahoma
offensive coordinator Jeff Leddy discusses the win: here
Oklahoma
defensive back Billy Bowman discusses the win: here
Oklahoma
running back Gavin Sawchuk discusses the win: here
Oklahoma
cornerback Woodi Washington discusses the win: here
Oklahoma
offensive lineman McKade Mettauer discusses the win: here
By Tom C. “Midnite” Burke
For the
second consecutive season, TCU head football coach Sonny Dykes has led the
Horned Frogs football team to an historic season.
Last
season, of course, Dykes led the Horned Frogs into the National College
Football Championship Playoff. TCU became the first football program from Texas
to qualify for the National Championship Playoff.
The
Frogs beat Michigan 51-45 in a Playoff semifinal game in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl
before falling to Georgia 65-7 in the national championship game this past
January 9.
This
season, with a resounding 69-45 season-ending loss to then-13th-ranked Oklahoma in
Norman, Oklahoma, on Black Friday, November 24, Dykes led TCU to a losing record,
5-7. As such, the Horned Frogs became just the third team since the College
Football Playoff started in 2014 to make the playoff one year and miss a bowl
game the next season.
One instance was in 2020, when LSU went 5-5
during the COVID-impacted season.
The other time was 2016, when Michigan
State went 3-9, after going 12-2 the previous season.
The last team to play for a national
championship one season and fail to qualify for a bowl game the next season was
Texas.
The Longhorns played for a national BCS
championship for the 2009 season, losing to Alabama, 37-21, in the Rose Bowl on
January 7, 2010.
For the 2010 season, the ‘Horns went 5-7
and did not qualify for a bowl game.
TCU lost its last three-of-four games to
finish the season 5-7 (3-6 Big 12). Over their past 15 games, the Frogs are 6-9.
After two seasons under Dykes, TCU is 18-9.
With such a forlorn season behind Dykes and
the Frogs, there’s not much left from last season’s magical run at a national
championship except for a few tattered souvenir T-shirts, some dusty trophies
and a College Football Playoff graphic in the upper northeast corner of the east
side of Amon G. Carter Stadium.
Dykes and the Frogs were the toast of
college football last season. Now there’s wonder as to whether TCU’s success in
2022 was a fluke or a flash-in-the-pan, and Dykes is on the hot seat to prove otherwise in 2024.
TCU’s loss to the Sooners made a
Texas-Oklahoma Big 12 Conference Championship game possible in the last Big 12
season for the Longhorns and Sooners. Oklahoma State averted that nightmarish scenario
with a 40-34 double overtime victory over BYU on Saturday, November 25.
The 19th-ranked Cowboys (9-3, 7-2), which earned second
place by virtue of a tie-breaker victory over Oklahoma during the regular season,
will play seventh-ranked Texas (11-1, 8-1) in the Conference Championship Game
on December 2 in AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Kickoff is scheduled for
11 am (Central). ABC will televise the game.
Texas defeated Texas Tech 57-7 on November
25 in Austin. The ‘Horns still have visions of being one of the four teams
selected to play for a national championship, but that dream is a long-shot.
In other season-finales involving Big 12
teams:
- Iowa
State (7-5, 6-3), snowballed Kansas State (8-4, 6-3), 42-35
-
West Virginia (8-4, 6-3) slipped past Baylor (3-9, 2-7), 34-32
- Kansas (8-4, 5-4), pounded Cincinnati (3-9, 1-8), 49-16
- UCF (6-6, 3-6) dominated Houston (4-8, 2-7), 27-13
The 2023 Big 12 Conference regular-season standings:
- Texas,
8-1
- Oklahoma State, 7-2
- Oklahoma, 7-2
- Iowa State, 6-3
- Kansas State, 6-3
- West Virginia, 6-3
- Texas Tech, 5-4
- Kansas, 5-4
- UCF, 3-6
- TCU, 3-6
- Houston, 2-7
- BYU, 2-7
- Baylor, 2-7
- Cincinnati, 1-8
Nine
of the 14 Big 12 teams are bowl eligible: seventh-ranked Texas, 12th-ranked Oklahoma, 19th-ranked Oklahoma State, 25th-ranked Kansas State, Iowa State, West Virginia, Texas Tech, UCF and Kansas.
TCU
joins four other Big 12 teams that are not bowl eligible: Baylor, Houston, BYU
and Cincinnati.
The
University of Houston responded to the Cougars’ losing season by firing head
football coach Dana Holgerson, who previously was the head football coach at
West Virginia.
Baylor University responded to the Bears' losing season by announcing that head coach Dave Aranda would return for his fifth season as head coach of the program.
Other
Texas Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams that are bowl-eligible include SMU,
UTSA, Rice and Texas State.
Other
Texas FBS teams that are not bowl-eligible include UTEP (3-9), Sam Houston
(4-8) and North Texas (5-7).
Not
too elite company for the Horned Frogs, who at the end of last season were playing, and losing to, Kansas State in the 2022 Big 12 Conference Championship Game, and were
hanging with such national powers as the Georgia Bulldogs, Michigan Wolverines and Ohio State Buckeyes.
Georgia has followed up its national championship season with a 12-0 record and No. 1 ranking. Michigan is 12-0 and ranked second. Ohio State is 11-1 and ranked sixth.
Besides
last season’s Fiesta Bowl, the last bowl game TCU played in was the infamous 2018 Cheez-It
Bowl. The Frogs defeated California 10-7 in overtime.
Since
the Bluebonnet Bowl in 1984, the Horned Frogs have played in 22 bowl games,
including the 2011 Rose Bowl, which they won, 21-19 over Wisconsin, and last
season’s national championship game.
TCU's losing record this season was its third in the last five years and fourth in the last eight years.
Obviously,
TCU’s Big 12 colleagues this season weren’t impressed by what the Frogs
accomplished last season. TCU beat only one conference team this season that it had beaten
last season – Baylor.
The
Frogs beat Oklahoma last year, 55-24, in Fort Worth. But this year’s game was
different, right from the beginning.
Oklahoma’s
first play from scrimmage was a 50-yard pass completion.
The
Sooners led 42-16 at halftime and if not for a 22-point third quarter by TCU
the final score might have been worse than the 65-7 Inglewood Massacre.
Nonetheless,
it was bad enough.
The
114 combined points were the most combined points in a Big 12 game over the
last three seasons.
The
69 points laid on the Frogs by the Sooners are the most points TCU has allowed
in a game since the Horned Frogs lost to Texas Tech 70-35 in 2004.
Two of
some of the highest-scoring losses in TCU football history have now taken place
under the watch of Dykes and his two-year defensive coordinator, Joe Gillespie,
who plays an unconventional 3-3-5 scheme that is not popular, to say the least,
with TCU fans.
Georgia’s 65 points against the Frogs were
the most scored by a team in a College Football Playoff (CFP)/ Bowl
Championship Series (BCS) title game.
The 65 points tied for the most points
scored against a team ranked in the Associated Press top four.
Georgia’s 58-point win was the biggest
margin of victory in any national championship game dating back to the start of
the BCS era in 1998, eclipsing USC’s 55-19 win over Oklahoma in January of
2005.
The 58-point margin of victory by
Georgia was the largest ever against a team ranked in the Associated Press top
four (10 more than Army 48, Notre Dame 0 in 1945).
The Bulldogs’ 58-point win was the
largest margin of victory in a postseason FBS game. Not just a national
championship game – the worst loss of every bowl and every other postseason FBS
game that has been played. Ever!
The maulings by the Bulldogs and
Sooners are reminiscent of some of TCU’s most embarrassing losses on the
gridiron, including those during the dreadful football seasons through the 70s
and the 80s.
Remember Alabama 45, TCU 0, in 1975?
How about Texas 69, TCU 7, in 1969, or
Texas 58, TCU 0, in 1970.
And, of course, Texas 81, TCU 16, in
1974, and Texas 51, TCU 26, in 1980.
And Nebraska 64, TCU 10, in 1976, and
the Cornhuskers 56, the Frogs 14, in 1975.
Ohio State routed TCU, 62-0, in 1969.
Texas Tech blasted the Frogs, 63-7, in
1985.
Texas A&M drilled TCU, 59-10, in
1976, 52-23 in 1997, 53-6 in 1985, and 56-10 in 1990.
Besides the 69 points, TCU’s defense
gave up 607 yards to Oklahoma; 400 passing yards and 207 rushing yards. OU
scored five touchdowns on the ground and three touchdowns through the air. The
Sooners rounded out their scoring onslaught with an interception-return for a
touchdown and two field goals.
Oklahoma quarterback Gabriel Dillon
carved up TCU’s secondary, often having enough time against TCU’s defensive
line to eat a slice or two of pumpkin pie before completing another pass.
Dillon completed 24-of-38 passes for
400 yards and three touchdowns. He completed four passes of 25 yards or more,
including two for more than 50 yards.
Oklahoma wide receiver Drake Stoops,
the son of former Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops, caught 12 passes for 125
yards and one touchdown.
OU running back Gavin Sawchuk rushed 22
times for 130 yards and three touchdowns.
Against
Oklahoma’s defense, the Horned Frogs’ offense responded with a respectable 520
yards.
TCU
redshirt freshman quarterback Josh Hoover completed 32-of-58 passes for 344
yards. He threw four touchdown passes, tying a personal-best, and he scored a
touchdown on a three-yard run. The five touchdowns are a career-best.
This was Hoover’s sixth game as the Frogs’
starting quarterback. He took over the role against BYU, on October 14, after
starter Chandler Morris suffered a knee injury in the previous game, a 27-14
loss to Iowa State.
Hoover now is 2-4 as a starter. Previously
under his leadership, the Frogs beat BYU and Baylor, and lost to Kansas State,
Texas Tech and Texas.
Against
Oklahoma, TCU running back Emani Bailey had 150 rushing yards on 21 carries.
This was his sixth 100-yard effort of the season. His 1,209 rushing yards in
2023 place him ninth for a season in TCU history.
Bailey
had a 32-yard touchdown run in the third quarter, which gave him a rushing
touchdown in four consecutive games.
TCU
senior tight end Jared Wiley had a career-best eight receptions, including two touchdowns,
to give him a team-best eight receiving scores on the season.
Junior
wide receiver JoJo Earle had a career-high 94 yards receiving on four catches,
his most at TCU. His previous best was 85 yards for Alabama against Mercer in
2021. Earle had a six-yard touchdown reception in the first quarter.
Defensive
highlights for the Horned Frogs against the Sooners were few and far between.
TCU
senior linebacker Jamoi Hodge had a career-best 14 tackles, including 1.5 for
loss, to surpass his previous best of 13 at West Virginia last season.
Junior linebacker Shad Banks Jr. had a career-high 11 tackles.
Sophomore
safety Bud Clark had his team-best third interception of the season.
Junior
lineback Nambi Obiazor had his first career fumble recovery off an Oklahoma
muffed punt.
With
Oklahoma moving from the Big 12 to the Southeastern Conference (SEC) after this
season, TCU's loss to OU will be the last football game between the Sooners and
Horned Frogs for the foreseeable future.
It
now remains to be seen for which TCU players and coaches the game will be
the last for them as a Horned Frog.
