The suspense and fear were both merited and deserved, but this story would not feature some painful M. Night Shyamalan twist.
TCU’s fear that its overtime loss in the Big 12 championship game against Kansas State on Saturday would cripple the dream ultimately had no effect on Sunday.
TCU is in the college football playoff.
On Sunday morning during ESPN’s marathon College Football Playoff Selection show, TCU was formally announced as the No. 3 team in the rankings.
Unranked before the season with a first-year coach and senior starting quarterback who was effectively benched for Week 1, coach Sonny Dykes, quarterback Max Duggan and TCU earned all of this.
No matter how hard Alabama coach Nick Saban embarrassed himself campaigning for the Tide to make it to the big bracket, TCU will play No. 2 Michigan the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Eve in the national semifinal.
Whatever happens, the entire season is a win.
TCU in 2022 stood on the efforts of people like former coach Dennis Franchione, Gary Patterson, former athletic directors Eric Hyman, Danny Morrison, Chris Del Conte, former players like LaDainian Tomlinson, Andy Dalton, Trevone Boykin, Josh Doctson and hundreds of other men and women who made this fantasy even an absurd possibility.
Because TCU in a four-team, not the upcoming 12-team, college football playoff is absurd.
TCU is the first team from the state of Texas to make the college football playoff, which is a stinging indictment on both Texas A&M and the University of Texas.
TCU is ranked behind No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Michigan, and ahead of No. 4 Ohio State, No. 5 Alabama and No. 6 Tennessee.
Five of those blue bloods have won national titles since 1997. TCU’s last national title was in 1938.
The following is the top six teams in the final college football rankings, their respective enrollments and average attendance at home football games in 2022.
No. 1 Georgia. 37,000 enrollment; 92,000 avg. home attendance.
No. 2 Michigan. 44,700 enrollment; 110,000 avg. home attendance.
No. 3 TCU. 10,400 enrollment; 46,000 avg. home attendance.
No. 4 Ohio State. 66,400 enrollment; 104,000 avg. home attendance.
No. 5 Alabama. 38,500 enrollment; 98,000 avg. home attendance.
No. 6 Tennessee. 28,300 enrollment; 100,000 avg. home attendance.
These home attendance figures have been fudged by their reporting schools, but you get the idea.
By numbers, one school doesn’t belong here.
And, yet, it does.
People such as CBS football analyst Gary Danielson, and so many others, tried like hell to devalue TCU’s season, the team finished 12-1 in a Power 5 league.
This has not been years in the making. Go with decades.
The journey to Sunday’s announcement began in the spring of 1998, when school administrators leaned into athletics to rebuild a school that had fallen behind.
The Big 12 excluding TCU when the Southwest Conference broke up was a punch to the face, and ego, of every single member of the TCU community.
In 1996, only the Western Athletic Conference wanted TCU.
Starting in 1998, TCU has simply, slowly, stacked achievement on achievement to advance the ball a little bit further for the next generation.
First it was winning the Sun Bowl; winning the WAC; jumping to Conference USA; being a part of the BCS Buster narrative; beating Oklahoma in Norman; joining the Mountain West Conference; going to the Fiesta Bowl, winning the Rose Bowl, joining the Big 12; winning the Big 12; being uninvited to the playoffs, and now finally going to the playoffs.
Even the most ardent Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M or Texas Tech fan would have to recognize, and respect, what TCU has done in an arena that really isn’t for a Horned Frog.
College football is a stacked deck made for the big corporations of the world.
How TCU performs against Michigan will matter, but that’s for later in the week.
Watching the TCU coaches and staff celebrate the announcement on Sunday morning said everything. They all knew they were a long shot, and they did it anyways.
TCU had plenty of reasons to worry but there was no cruel M. Night Shyamalan twist to this story.
TCU is in the college football playoffs because they earned it.
