One of the more charming descriptions for TCU is that its cartoon mascot has far more in common with a drawing by Walt Disney rather than the guy who created Homer Simpson.
That TCU is indeed Cinderella.
(FYI: The popular “Hypnotoad” that has become synonymous with the 2022 TCU football team is a drawing by the cartoonist who created “The Simpsons,” Matt Groening).
Pretty sure most people know Cinderella, and her cruel backstory.
Cinderella was broke, and forced to work for what essentially amounts to slave wages for her evil step mother.
TCU is not exactly living in a basement and hand-washing laundry.
As of this year, TCU’s endowment is $2.4 billion. With a capital B.
Tuition, with room/board and books, at TCU for the 2022-’23 year is a crisp $69,130; it should be noted that $90 of that figure is fees, so maybe you can negotiate that part out.
That sort of cash buys a lot of washing machines, but more likely trips to the dry cleaner to have socks pressed and creased.
The university has spent a lot of tens of millions over the years on athletics. It recently announced plans to build a new $40 million football training complex.
TCU athletics as Cinderella is just a bit of Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.
There is one element of the Cinderella story that still fits, today more than ever.
TCU has some evil, jealous step sisters who are none to pleased right now. One is a pretty dog, and the other is a giant steer.
For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll call Texas A&M’s Reveille “Anastasia,” and Texas’ Bevo is “Drizella.”
The first school from Texas to make college football’s playoff ball is a frog; that sounds like a different Disney movie.
Texas, Texas A&M ... what do you have to say for yourselves? How could either of you let this happen?
That TCU is the first team from Texas to make the playoffs should force every Aggie and Longhorn to ask themselves what they are doing wrong.
Why even have a team if all you are going to do is underwhelm and disappoint the great people who are loyal fans of your respective institutions?
Both Texas and Texas A&M have everything necessary to make the final four, starting with bank accounts that a Saudi Prince may confuse as his own.
As of August, the University of Texas is the second richest university in the world with an endowment just under $43 billion. Who says high gas prices are a problem?
UT didn’t catch Harvard for No. 1, but did jump Yale for silver.
Texas A&M isn’t exactly pan handling, although that doesn’t stop the school from constantly asking anyone, including the homeless, for more money.
The Aggies’ sport an endowment of approximately $18 billion, and consistently rank around the top 10 in the country.
Between the size of their respective endowments, and budgets set specifically for football, there is no good reason why one of these teams didn’t make the playoffs before TCU.
What Texas A&M achieved this season under Jimbo Fisher should result in a full investigation by the university; a 5-7 record in his fifth season in College Station qualifies as the most disappointing year for any major college football team in America.
Texas, in its second under head coach Steve Sarkisian, improved but still should be in better shape.
Both of these programs feature every single advantage possible in the world of power college football.
The Aggies and Longhorns play in stadiums that seat well over 100,000 whereas TCU’s stadium seats 46,000.
Texas averaged just over 100,000 fans at its home games this season while the Aggies averaged 97,000.
TCU claimed it averaged 46,000 when anyone with two eyes could tell you that number is fudged; no disrespect, funny math is a necessity when reporting attendance throughout sports.
Point is TCU has a lot money, spends a lot money, and neither its holdings nor its investments can really compare to the cash that both Texas and Texas A&M generate, and blow through.
It’s a small school surrounded by giants.
Since the creation of the college football playoffs in 2014, TCU, Baylor and Texas A&M had come the closest before this season.
In the final regular season 2014 college football playoff rankings, Baylor finished fifth and TCU sixth.
In 2020, the Aggies were ranked fifth in the final CFP regular season poll. That was the disaster COVID season, when playing a game was bigger than winning a game.
A convincing case can be made that the Aggies were wrongly left out of the top four, not that much different in 2014 when TCU didn’t make the cut.
Neither Texas nor Texas Tech have come close to the top four.
TCU is a billion-dollar school, so selling the Horned Frog as a true Cinderella requires an extended suspension of disbelief.
What requires no suspension of disbelief is that the Horned Frogs’ step sisters, Reveille and Bevo, are a giant disappointment for not having made the playoffs already.
