TCU News: “None of us should ever take these types of days for granted”

Football:

TCU’s Saturday was hardly another day for the Horned Frogs | The Star-Telegram

GameDay doesn’t come to small, private schools like TCU very often. Schools like TCU don’t make it into Power Conferences often. Ranked match-ups with playoff implications aren’t weekly occurrences. You’re right Mac, you’re absolutely right.

“This was just another game,” TCU running back Kyle Hicks said, “and another Saturday for us.”

No it wasn’t, so don’t bother lying that it was. When ESPN analyst Lee Corso puts on your mascot head at your school, like he did with the Super Frog, that’s a Saturday most college programs would spend millions in hopes of obtaining.

TCU may never win a national title, but the Horned Frogs are one of the great miracle success stories in the history of college football. What the Frogs are doing currently, and have done for more than a decade, should not happen in today’s landscape of college football.

The small, private school in Fort Worth will rank ahead of Ohio State, Wisconsin, Auburn, and now Oklahoma, too in the next college football rankings. That’s not impossible, but it’s close.

It wasn’t easy, but TCU remains unbeaten, survives West Virginia | The Star-Telegram

But isn’t this perfect for GP? Survive the GameDay hoopla, get a win, and still have plenty to dive into during film? I have a feeling they will have come down off that mountain just in time for Kansas State.

“Every game is going to be like this,” TCU coach Gary Patterson said. “If you’re going to win championships, as a general rule — and this has been every year I’ve been here for 17 years as a head coach — you win about three or four that are ugly. You’ve got to win the ugly ones sometimes.”

This one counts as that.

“No excuses. I’m not going to be happy tomorrow about a couple of things,” Patterson said. “But we found a way to get to 5-0. It’s hard to be 5-0. We’re tied with some people in the conference. Now you move on to the next game.”

TCU moves to the head of the Big 12 pack | ESPN

Well, now you’re going to get everyone’s best shot.

By now, maybe we should have learned not to sleep on Gary Patterson and his TCU football team coming off a disappointing season.

All the rage in the Big 12 back in August was everybody but the Horned Frogs. They were sort of the forgotten bunch coming off their 6-7 season in 2016. But here we are approaching the middle of October this season, and the Horned Frogs are the Big 12's only unbeaten team, thanks to their 31-24 win over No. 23 West Virginia on Saturday and No. 3 Oklahoma's 38-31 upset loss to Iowa State earlier in the day.TCU moves to the head of the Big 12 pack

TCU beats West Virginia and is the last unbeaten team in the Big 12 | SB Nation

The Frogs and Longhorns sit alone at the top of the Big 12 standings, just like we all expected.

TCU entered undefeated, coming off a bye week. The week before that, the Frogs earned a road upset at Oklahoma State, solidifying themselves as a Big 12 contender. Oklahoma’s loss to Iowa State earlier Saturday gives the Frogs an opening to get a little jump on the team that figures to be the best in the conference this year.

West Virginia won its next three games after a season-opening defeat by Virginia Tech. The Mountaineers lost a lot after last year, but they’ve reloaded on the fly enough to be one of the better teams in the Big 12 right away.

Neither of these teams is likely to win the league this year, but both have been good enough so far that they’re at least in the conversation. Oklahoma’s loss makes the conference seem more open than ever before and raised the stakes of this game.

Despite Outplaying TCU, West Virginia Finds Another Heartbreaking Way to Lose | The Smoking Musket

That OPI call is going to be blamed for the loss forever. But, Sills did push off, James grabbed his collar in response, and at worst, it should have been off-setting. All that being said, the TCU defense made plays when they had to, the offense was just good enough against the finally healthy Mountaineer D, and TCU won. It was anything but a gift of a game to the Frogs.

12 hours after the final bell sounded in another classic West Virginia-TCU game, I still can’t quite put my emotions aside. Like every bad dream, I keep hoping I will wake up and find out, no today is just Saturday and the game hasn’t been played yet. But it has and once again we must find a way to reconcile a game where the opponent was good, West Virginia was good and the Mountaineers gave away victory.

What frustrates me is all the talking heads picking TCU before the game, then having to read all the “TCU stakes claim as best in Big 12” after. I know that with victory come the spoils of war, but as the loser of this war I can’t help but think “Did you not watch the game? West Virginia lost the game a whole lot more than TCU won the game”.