Life comes at you fast when you’re at the top.
The TCU Horned Frogs are starting to understand what comes with a 9-0 record and top-10 ranking.
The Horned Frogs have morphed from the hunters to the hunted as their Big 12 opponents view them as a chance for a signature win. As it fights for a Big 12 championship and spot in the College Football Playoff, TCU is learning on the job what it means to be the team everybody is gunning for.
“We’re learning that every single week we’re going to get everybody’s best shot because we’re a highly ranked team,” head coach Sonny Dykes said after TCU’s 34-24 win over visiting Texas Tech on Saturday. “There’s a skill that comes with that. You just have to have a different mentality, a different approach.
Early on against Texas Tech on Saturday that skill was tested as TCU felt to be ramming into a wall of Red Raiders. The Horned Frogs went eight straight possessions without scoring a touchdown. It was the first time since the game against Colorado that the offense didn’t score a touchdown in the first half.
For a unit that its used to being able to move the ball at will, the opening three quarters were a challenge.
“We were frustrated in the first half running the football. It was tough offense, we were having a time protecting (Max Duggan). Texas Tech’s D-line was good,” offensive lineman Wes Harris said.
The Horned Frogs managed just 3.7 yards per carry, their top receiver Quentin Johnston was unable to go after the first series and then there was the unspoken weight of having this game mean more than just in-state bragging rights with TCU being at the top of the conference standings.
“Despite everybody in the program doing everything they can do to talk about and preach the one-game-at-a-time thing, there are times where our players start to see the enormity and gravity of things. That results in maybe us to play at times to not make a mistake. We have to get that corrected,” Dykes said.
Dykes thinks that’s what has been at the root of the slow start the last few weeks and wants the Horned Frogs to get back to playing with a free energy that sparked this 9-0 run.
Dykes believes that teams take on the personality of their coaches. He wants to make sure he’s not producing that tight energy.
“It starts with us, as a coaching staff, and making sure those guys feel free and that they don’t pick up on that from me or the staff,” Dykes said.
While this TCU roster is still in the process of learning how to deal with being on the receiving end of the best efforts from the opposition, the Horned Frogs have already learned how they’ll respond when the pressure mounts during the game.
That’s a skill set that is just as valuable.
“I don’t think we choke, man,” Harris said. “We got the barrel of a gun pointed at us, and I don’t think one person out there on that field choked.”
With TCU trailing 17-13 entering the fourth quarter, TCU pulled away from Texas Tech. The Horned Frogs scored 21 straight points by playing complementary football with the defense stuffing the Red Raiders offense and the offense relying on Kendre Miller to open up things for Duggan.
The Heisman contender is grateful TCU knows how to rise to the occasion when it’s clutch time. But just like Dykes, he doesn’t want the Horned Frogs to constantly have to rely on that with only three games remaining in the season.
“I promise you our game plan is not to wait until the second half, we don’t like trying to get things rolling in the second half,” Duggan said. “We’ve done that the last few games, and we don’t want to live in that world. We’ve got to do a good job of coming out with the right mindset.”
It’s important that TCU has identified areas it needs to grow because the season is far from over. Texas handled Kansas State and Baylor has won three in a row. The time is coming for that elusive complete game where the Horned Frogs can play complementary football for four quarters.
That challenge will need to be answered in Austin next Saturday night against a Texas team that will have the edge in talent, according to the recruiting rankings and NFL mock drafts.
“We’re not a team that’s going to line up and everybody is going to go they’re just so much more talented that the teams they’ve played. We don’t have the luxury of when the schedule comes out, ‘Yeah these eight games are wins, these four games are games we’re really going to have to play good. ‘We don’t have that luxury in the Big 12, that’s not what this team is,” Dykes said.
What type of team are the Horned Frogs then?
At its best TCU has played a free-flowing style of football that’s aggressive and creative. The Horned Frogs briefly lost that identity before finding it again in the fourth quarter against Texas Tech.
The latest scare reminded the Horned Frogs of who they really are, and the goal is to remember that against the Longhorns and the rest of the way.
