Three up, three down: In the arms of the angel

In the arms of the angel…

Fly awayyyyyy from here…

From this dark, cold, season…

And the endlessness that you fear…

TCU lost. It was bad. Here’s my three up, three down for the week.

Three Up:

1. Griffin Kell

Show this man some love. He put TCU on his dang back on Saturday and accounted for ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of their offense.

That’s nasty.

Kell hit both of his 32-yard field goal attempts on the day, one in the second quarter and one in the third quarter. He was also perfect on extra points.

On the year, the sophomore has actually been pretty good. His field goal percentage of 71.4 percent is tied for third in the Big 12, and he’s only missed one extra point.

Griffin Kell is no Matt Prater, but he’s certainly not the problem.

2. Jordy Sandy

This dude is the truth.

Sandy is another guy who has gone underrated on this TCU squad. That’s not saying much, but he still deserves some credit.

On Saturday, the Australian punted five times with an average of 37.4 yards per punt and a long of 45 yards.

He did nothing special, but he also didn’t do anything to negatively affect the Frogs.

What is quite impressive is that Sandy leads the Big 12 with 17 punts inside the 20-yard line this season. He also has five punts of 50-plus yards and ranks fourth in the conference with an average of 41.8 yards per punt.

As you all likely expected, Sandy has punted more than anyone in the conference with 41 total punts on the season.

The Aussie doesn’t deserve a medal or a key to the city, but he’s also certainly not the problem.

3. Tre Moehrig

After starting the season slowly, Moehrig has returned to his all-pro form at safety for TCU. He’s a hard hitter, a ball hawk, and one of the most prominent leaders on the team.

Against the Mountaineers, the junior set a season-high with 10 tackles, adding a tackle for loss as well. He was all over the field, often making tackles after his teammates missed their own assignments.

Unfortunately, Moehrig will also make the down portion of my list this week, so his play is not exactly why he is on the top portion.

After the game, the safety was the one player that was made available to the media. Despite having just suffered an embarrassing loss, Moehrig was respectful and fluid in his answers. He even said “thank you, guys” to everyone when he left.

It’s a small detail; but in the NFL, the media doesn’t care whether you win or lose. Moehrig is certainly going to see time on Sundays in the near future, so examples like Saturday show that he’s not only a true Horned Frog but he’s also getting ready for the next level.

Three Down:

1. C.J. Ceasar II

If you’ve read my “Three up, three down” before, you know that C.J. has been on my list before. Against Tech, the guy got torched twice for deep touchdowns.

In Morgantown, Ceasar’s coverage showed significant improvement. He was often going stride for stride with guys in a pretty good West Virginia receiving core.

Overall, the sophomore finished with three tackles and nothing major given up.

On the other hand, the corner got in a fight with a West Virginia wideout during the first half that was completely unnecessary and could have cost TCU big yardage.

After the two were locked up in blocking, the Mountaineer player fell on Ceasar, prompting him to push him off and start the scuffle. It was quickly broken up, and no flags were thrown, which is actually a miracle.

Look, I’m not one to say players shouldn’t be gritty, especially in a big game. What I do think is that you have to earn the right to talk trash.

A week ago, Ceasar was so bad in coverage that Gary Patterson joked about playing in his place. On top of that, the fight happened when TCU was down 14-3.

With the Frogs trying to crawl back in the game and Ceasar being TCU’s worst corner, it just didn’t seem like he was thinking about anyone but himself in that moment.

2. Tre Moehrig

This hurts, because Tre is one of my favorite players on the TCU roster. It had to be done, though.

In coverage, Moehrig gave up several big catches that hurt the Frogs.

Perhaps the biggest of which was a 23-yard pass to Mountaineers’ receiver Winston Wright Jr. The play was the biggest for West Virginia on their 15-play, 99-yard drive to start the game that ended in a touchdown.

Moehrig’s worst moment came at the beginning of the fourth quarter, though.

TCU had just gotten a crucial stop and faced just an 11-point deficit with 13 minutes remaining. Then, Moehrig muffed the punt, giving the ball right back to West Virginia.

The Mountaineers scored two plays later, and the game felt over.

I know that Moehrig was in a new position (filling in for the injured Derius Davis), but that is a mistake you cannot make as a junior, especially not in such a crucial moment.

“I can’t say much about that. That one was just on me,” Moehrig said after the game.

It was not the best day for the Preseason All-Big 12 safety, but I think we can all agree that he is *say it with me* certainly not the problem.

3. Max Duggan

I’m not sure if it’s a mental thing or perhaps an undisclosed injury, but something is wrong with Max Duggan.

After holding a completion percentage of 70% and surpassing 200 passing yards three times through TCU’s first four games, the sophomore has dipped to hitting 55% of his passes and coming short of 200 yards each time in the last three games.

Against West Virginia, Duggan was missing throws left and right, high and low. It just felt like he could not find a rhythm.

Midway through the quarter, receiver Taye Barber broke free from coverage on third down and was WIDE open in the endzone. Duggan, standing just under 20 yards from Barber, airmailed the pass out the back of the endzone.

TCU had to settle for a field goal.

Duggan finished 16-for-29 with 161 yards and a pick he practically threw to West Virginia safety Tykee Smith to end the game.

Patterson said after the game that Duggan is not injured. I guess running for your life for 60 minutes a weekend does just take a tole on you.

As the Frogs now have two weekends to work on their offense (bye week followed by game at Kansas), one can only hope that the coaching staff can do what they need to do to get Max Duggan right.

Lord knows we need him.