TCU @ UT 9/8/07

I agree. I almost think it's bad that UT barely won last week. I think that the close win, coupled with the fact that some people are saying they might lose to TCU, might cause the Horns to come out pissed. We'll see, though. This is gonna be a true measuring stick for whether or not TCU has a strong team this year.

Go Frogs! Pull the upset.

 

"TCU doesn't scare me at all,They shouldn't. They are another football team. They are coming to our place." these are words spoken by Colt.
may god be with the frogs and what is the deal with Blake? Personal reasons?

 

I'm a TCU grad. Of course I'm pulling for the Frogs

 

I believe conquistador#11 is referring to Tommy Blake, standout DE for the Horned Frogs who did not play against Baylor and has missed time due to personal reasons.

About the game, I think that Texas will be highly motivated to come out and perform well against a quality opponent. Mack will have the team ready to play. I think the flat play the first game had to do with looking past Arkansas State and forward to TCU.

Horns win 31-17 but the game is close throughout.

 

i didnt realise all i saw was the score.

 

Seriously, Mack Brown looks like he's just going thru the motions on sidelines.

It's time for some new blood. I can't believe that line is set at -9. I would put money on TCU and the points. Texas aint rackin up 100 yards rushing. This I gaurantee. So Colt better bring the thunder or we're gonna get rapped.

I'll be watching this at a friends Apt. with some other friends including a female TCU grad who had a class with LT. If we lose I'm finishing the bottle of Sauza Tequilla my friend brought me in the hopes of waking up from my druken stupor in some other parallel universe were Chris Petersen is the Longhorn coach and we're on our way to a National Championship.

 

wow never thought so many people would doubt UT. i still think they will win but its refreshing.

(is TCU really that good????)

 

Well, on the brightside, I have no problem rooting for TCU since they have a Katy grad as their QB. So, I'll adopt them for this season if they pull off the upset. I'll have to see if I can find that old TCU hat I bought when I was dating that girl who graduated from there.

 

TCU is good, but I think it's more of the fact that we played as bad as we did last week.

I fully expect to see a completely different team out there this week. They should be pissed and most of all...focused. Orakpo is doubtful for the game which hurts us, but Eddie Jones played really well filling in for him last week. I'm excited to see what he can do for us.

 

Eddie Jones was a 5-star recruit, I'm anxious to see what he can do playing full-time. I definitely hope they are pissed and focused, this TCU team looks pretty good.

 

He ended up with 4 Tackles, 1 TFL, 1 Int, 1/2 Sack, 2 QB Hurries in limited time last week. Jones was my favorite recruit out of his class, more so than Kindle.

 

Speaking of Kindle, the defense really need him right now.

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/stewart_mandel/09/06/tcu.underappreciated/index.html


ROAD TO RESPECT: Underappreciated TCU looks to make statement vs. UT
By Stewart Mandel

If ever there was a case study in just how drastically the 9-year-old BCS has changed the face of college football, look no further than the game taking place Saturday in Austin, Texas.

In theory, it is a high-powered matchup between two top-20 teams, No. 7 Texas and No. 19 TCU. In reality, nary a soul outside of Fort Worth views those two teams in the same light.

As Appalachian State proved against Michigan last weekend, not to mention Boise State against Oklahoma last January, college football's classification labels are becoming increasingly obsolete. Yet if the Horned Frogs knock off the Longhorns this weekend, the story will undoubtedly be that of a "non-BCS" team "stunning" a "BCS" team, and how the victory might help little 'ol TCU "crash" one of the major bowls.

Never mind that the two schools played in the same conference for 72 years. Or that TCU, which opened its season last week with a 27-0 win rout of Baylor, currently carries a longer Big 12 winning streak (five games) than its Big 12 adversary. Or that the Horned Frogs' defense held Texas Tech's notoriously high-octane offense to 28 less points last year (in a 12-3 win) than did the 'Horns (35-31). Or that TCU has had nearly as many 10-win seasons this decade (five) as Texas (six).

"For the old timers like me, I think [the non-BCS label] sticks in some peoples' craws," said John Denton, a placekicker for TCU in the early '80s who now serves as the Frogs' radio analyst. "We don't think of ourselves as chopped liver."

By no means would Denton or any other sane individual suggest TCU's program is on the same level as the Longhorns, what with Texas' staggering $60 million budget and still-glistening 2005 national championship trophy. The competitive gap, however, isn't nearly as cavernous you might think.

"I really feel like college football hasn't been fair to TCU," Texas coach Mack Brown said this week. "If you look at their record [64-21 this decade], they have earned the right to be considered one of the best teams in the country."

Frogs fans undoubtedly appreciate Brown's recognition of their accomplishments -- which, in seven years under coach Gary Patterson, includes the aforementioned five straight wins over Big 12 foes (including a 2005 season-opening win over Oklahoma when the Sooners were coming off consecutive BCS title-game appearances) and a 9-1 record against BCS opponents since 2002.

That said, Brown's employer is arguably the biggest reason that TCU -- the once-fabled school of Sammy Baugh and Davey O'Brien -- is relegated to second-class status to begin with.

When Texas and Texas A&M decided to bail on the crumbling Southwest Conference in the mid-'90s to join what would eventually become the Big 12, it set in motion a chain of events that left the Frogs -- along with fellow SWC leftovers SMU, Rice and Houston -- to fend for themselves in the college football wilderness. Saturday will mark the first meeting between Texas and TCU since the SWC's final season in 1995.

Though the two schools were rarely on the same footing competitively even before the BCS era -- Texas holds a 60-20-1 advantage over the Frogs all-time -- at least they were considered colleagues for the better part of a century.

"I remember when we'd go to Austin and everyone would have a good time, but it wasn't that big a deal," said Denton, who, as director of the TCU Frog booster club, says that tickets to Saturday's game are the school's most sought-after in two decades. "This is almost like a bowl trip for some people. They were getting there [on Wednesday.]"

The last time the 'Horns and Frogs met as ranked opponents, on Nov. 17, 1984, the two teams were playing for the same stakes -- a shot at the Southwest Conference title and accompanying berth to the Cotton Bowl. (No. 10 Texas wound up beating No. 12 TCU 44-23, though neither ended up taking home the conference crown.)

The rules have changed, however, so much so that the Frogs almost have to beat the 'Horns on Saturday -- and possibly win the rest of their games as well -- to be assured a major bowl bid. A loss, meanwhile, will have no such disastrous effect on Texas, which is still guaranteed a BCS berth if it wins the Big 12.

"For us, it's a measuring stick game," said TCU coach Patterson. "Everyone wants to play in this type of game."

In the 12 seasons since the SWC folded, TCU has played in three different conferences -- the WAC (1996-2000), Conference USA (2001-04) and the Mountain West (2005-present). Whereas in an earlier era the Horned Frogs spent most of their season traversing the state of Texas, their annual road trips now include such illogical destinations as San Diego, Las Vegas and Ft. Collins, Colo.

Yet their vagabond status has not prevented the Frogs from fielding one of the nation's most consistent programs this decade. Beginning under former coach Dennis Franchione in 1998, TCU has been to eight bowl games in nine seasons, winning five of them. Their .756 winning percentage this decade is the 11th highest in Division I-A, ahead of Auburn, Florida and Michigan.

"Our notoriety and our brand is much better now than it was back in the mid-80s," said Denton, who experienced just one winning record during his 1981-84 career. "I'll take the success we're having now, whether it's in the Mountain West or Conference USA, compared to what we had when I was in school."

The one feat that's eluded TCU, however, is that all-important invite to a BCS bowl game, the kind that brought national prestige to recent Fiesta Bowl participants Utah (2004) and Boise State ('06). The Frogs have come close, and in fact, had the BCS' current automatic-entry standards (where a conference champ that finishes in the top 12 of the final standings, or in the top 16 but above one of the BCS-conference champions, gets an automatic berth) been in place since the beginning rather than the previous top-six requirement, TCU would have qualified in both 2000 (LaDainian Tomlinson's senior season) and 2005.

Instead, the Frogs played in the then-Mobile Alabama Bowl and Houston Bowl those seasons, each of which pay at least $13 million less than a BCS game and provide about one-thirteenth the glamour. Other recent bowl trips have included the Liberty Bowl (2002), the Fort Worth Bowl ('03) and Poinsettia Bowl ('06).

So while Patterson's team has garnered no shortage of recognition from the pollsters (TCU has been ranked in the final AP and coaches polls five times this decade, including a high of ninth in the '05 coaches edition), the Frogs have yet to garner anywhere near the type of acclaim as Utah or Boise State.

"Boise did it the right way, they kept winning every year, and if you keep doing it long enough, finally, you get that chance," said Patterson. "One day we're going to get lucky, where all the stars are line up."

This season would seem to provide as good a chance as any. The Frogs boast nine returning starters from a defense that ranked second in the country last year in both total defense (234.9 yards per game) and rushing defense (60.8), including two-time All-Mountain West defensive ends Tommy Blake (who will return this week after missing the Baylor game with an illness) and Chase Ortiz. They held Baylor to 51 rushing yards last week, and opponents have managed just 9.6 points per game during their current nine-game winning streak.

"They held Baylor to 78 yards total offense in the second half," said Texas coach Brown. "In the Big 12, to shut someone out and hold them to 78 yards is absolutely phenomenal. I'm just amazed at how good they looked at on film."

Offensively, the Frogs boast the Mountain West's preseason offensive player of the year, running back Aaron Brown, but have a first-time starter at quarterback (redshirt freshman Andy Dalton). That said, Patterson has gone through five different starting QBs over the past six years, none of whom were particularly dazzling but didn't need to be because of TCU's strong defense.

It's no secret the Horned Frogs hope the Texas game will serve as a springboard for their own Boise State-like BCS run (most likely destination: the Sugar Bowl). Even a loss, provided it's not lopsided, would not necessarily be devastating to the BCS effort. But a sweep of their conference games is far from a given -- both defending champ BYU (20-7 over Arizona) and Wyoming (23-3 over Virginia) also whipped major-conference foes on opening weekend.

Asked which would be more gratifying, beating Texas on Saturday or winning the Mountain West, defensive end Ortiz did not hesitate in responding with what must certainly be the Patterson-approved answer: "Winning the Mountain West." He conceded, however, that the majority of TCU's fans -- more than 10,000 of which Denton estimates will be making the trip to Austin -- might feel differently.

"I'd say the average fan," said Ortiz, "... they'd rather see us beat Texas."

That's because an opportunity to face the state's linchpin program doesn't come around every year. Not like it used to, anyway.

 

Also, I think all this media coverage is going to pump the Horns up even more. I was hoping to fly under the radar and catch them looking towards their conference games. Not now

Go Frogs

 

ESPN poll predicting TCU win

poll with over 43,000 votes predicting UT loses.

i guess a lot of people thing UT isnt going to be much this year.

 

aggys love polls

 

I think it has to do more with nostalgia, everyone wants that sensation of a smaller school knocking down an empire like UT.
even the comrades started cheering for rocky