TCU lost last year’s Fiesta Bowl against Boise State by just a touchdown. The very interesting issue here is that this small bump would be the only negative mark in what has been an otherwise impeccable two seasons for the Texas Christian University football team. The TCU Horned Frogs managed to complete a perfect season ranked as the No. 3 team in the Nation with a 13-0 record that ended with a great win over the Wisconsin Badgers for the BCS Rose Bowl played at Pasadena, California.
Tank Carder, a defensive linesman for the Horned Frogs was able to jump in the right moment to interfere with Scott Tolzien’s last pass in a 2-point conversion that would have forced the game into overtime. The Badgers gave a great battle during the game, but it was just not enough. At the end, TCU claimed a 21-19 win over Wisconsin to win its first ever Rose Bowl.
There had been a lot of questions made in regards to TCU’s performance during the season. Sure, this win has secured this group of talented players (guided no other then by head coach Gary Patterson) a place in the programs football history. Not only is this a great win for the school but also for all the small programs that have had to deal with that sort of monopoly that comes from the bigger and more prestigious football programs in NCAA football.
The Badgers played a good game. That’s is something that not the rest of the teams in the Big Ten can say about themselves. On this New Year’s day the Big Ten Conference went 0-5. What we want to point out is that TCU won in the big scenario against a big school that actually played well. The Badgers committed no turnovers. They needed not to punt until the third quarter and although it was a close game, it was just not as close the Badgers fans would have liked it to be.
On the other hand, the Horned-Frogs did everything they needed to stay in control of the game. TCU’s quarterback Andy Dalton was brilliant. He was there when his team needed him most. He completed 15 of 23 passes for 219 yards and one touchdown. As a matter of fact he was responsible for 247 of TCU’s 301 yards. So yes, it was one heck of a game.
And it was also one heck of a game for non Automatic Qualification schools too. The record for non-AQ schools improved to 5-2 in BCS Bowls. Now, it is uncertain if the Horned Frogs win is of lesser or greater value then what Boise State did in 2007 with their 1-point win over the Oklahoma Sooners in the Fiesta Bowl, or what happened in the 2009 Sugar Bowl between Utah and the Alabama Crimson Tide in what certainly would be remembered as one the most epic upsets of BCS history.
What matters is that TCU has proved it deserved to be here. It has proved that they could have been worthy of a National Championship Game. Perhaps things will not change for smaller schools on the long run. But heck, if you have a sweet spot for underdog stories, then you’ll probably appreciate TCU’s effort as this is their second consecutive back-to-back BCS Bowl buster.
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