Remember the 2011 college football season?
It was atypical in that it provided a regular-season rematch in the BCS National Championship Game (Alabama-LSU in the Superdome), but it was a rather normal season in this respect: The TCU Horned Frogs won a conference championship. This represented normal business for head coach Gary Patterson and the juggernaut he had formed in the Mountain West.
TCU, a program treated as poorly as any in the country over the past 20 years when viewed solely within the context of conference realignment, had risen and conquered in spite of the instability imposed on the Horned Frogs by other people and forces. From 2005 through 2011, Patterson and TCU won at least 11 games every year but one. In the 2009 and 2010 campaigns, TCU produced unbeaten regular seasons. In 2010, the Frogs won the (2011) Rose Bowl over Wisconsin and — if we had this thing called a COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF WITH FOUR TEAMS IN IT — would have had a chance to play Auburn for the whole ball of wax following the bowl games as playoff semifinals.
In 2011, TCU won at Boise State in what was a slight upset, converting a late two-point conversion on the road to deny the Broncos — the other great non-power-conference program of the era (with Utah third) — an unbeaten regular season of their own. TCU had won the Mountain West title again, and so — as the program moved to the Big East for a few seconds and then to the Big 12 for real — there was every reason to think that the Frogs would continue to jump around and have fun.
That did not happen in 2012 and 2013.
TCU went a combined 11-14 in those two awful years. The Frogs seemed to be as plagued as the Egyptians had been when visited by other kinds of frogs in the Old Testament.
Then-quarterback Casey Pachall had to check into an alcohol rehab facility.
Four players were expelled after getting caught in a drug bust.
Another player just quit football, which was not and is not a sin… but certainly didn’t help Patterson’s situation.
Then, this past offseason, pass rusher supreme Devonte Fields was charged with misdemeanor assault and left the team.
One thing after another after another rained down on the Frogs. It was only natural to wonder if this program, back in a conference worthy of the school’s history in the 1930s under quarterback Sammy Baugh — back in a position of prominence after being forced to play in Conference USA and the WAC and the Mountain West in the previous two decades — would rebound.
Thursday night, a season that had already offered a very convincing answer was punctuated by a strong response to late-November pressure:
TCU could have cracked in the heat of competition the way it almost did against Kansas on Nov. 15. However, mentally refreshed by the bye week this team so sorely needed, the Frogs were focused in bashing Bevo’s Boys. The easy romp over Texas, combined with a layup finale against Iowa State on Dec. 6, will essentially make TCU a clubhouse leader in the chase for a College Football Playoff berth. TCU will be in the mix on Selection Sunday, Dec. 7. Say goodbye to questions about whether TCU could hang in the Big 12.
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Texas’s offense is not a formidable force, to say the least. Yet, it was very much worth noting that heading into Thursday’s game against TCU, the Longhorns had averaged over 30 points in their previous three games and had never scored fewer than 28. Texas’s offense was beginning to figure things out. Instructively, it scored 33 points against the West Virginia team that — we can now see in retrospect — lost all belief in itself after TCU made that nine-point, fourth-quarter comeback in Morgantown on Nov. 1.
Texas had given the impression that it was very much on an upward trajectory under Charlie Strong (and it might still be on a larger level, though not as much within the context of the 2014 season itself). With TCU having wobbled in the face of pressure against Kansas on Nov. 15, there was reason to doubt if the Frogs could show the late-season steel which is necessary to reach the pinnacle in college football.
There was no doubt that a week off gave these players in purple a chance to mentally refresh themselves.
Yes, Heisman Trophy candidate Trevone Boykin was just a little too antsy in this game. He was restless and reckless at times, and the 48-10 final score of this game will never begin to reflect the extent to which Texas’s defense excelled. Yet, give Boykin this: He trusted his wide receivers to make plays on jump balls — it’s a confidence which was well founded. Boykin didn’t make a big mistake in this game until TCU had already forged a 20-3 lead. He was probably as aggressive as he was because he knew his defense had his back… and it did. TCU’s players trusted each other, and they trusted each other in the right ways for the right reasons.
That’s what an 11-1 team looks like.
That’s what an 11-win season looks like (to be finalized and formalized on Dec. 6 at home against Iowa State).
It feels like 2011 all over again. Gary Patterson — by doing to the Big 12 what he once did to the Mountain West — has reaffirmed himself as a coaching superstar.
Texas Christian — a fixture in college football in the 1930s but then forced to carry its bags to smaller conferences unworthy of its standing in the sport’s history — has risen above its hardships.
You don’t have to love TCU or Patterson to appreciate what this story means in a larger sports context:
TCU has been in 6 conferences in 20 years (including Big East), and watching it suddenly dominate the Big 12 is pretty great.
— Matt Brown (@MattBrownCFB) November 28, 2014
