TCU football came into Saturday’s game against Iowa State knowing it couldn’t afford a loss if it wanted to keep its Big 12 title and College Football Playoff hopes alive. However, two interceptions by quarterback Josh Hoover in the first quarter helped doom the Horned Frogs to a 20-17 defeat.
Hoover has thrown two interceptions in three of the past six games this season, and TCU lost all of them. The junior ended up completing 34 of 50 passes for 291 yards and a touchdown with the two picks.
Hoover wore a glove on his right hand out of concern for his grip after getting it “banged up” against West Virginia on Oct. 25, but head coach Sonny Dykes said the glove wasn’t a big deal.
Dykes said he liked how Hoover played and ascribed both interceptions to pressure.
“I thought he played well,” Dykes said. “I mean, we’ll go and look at the tape and see, but I thought, he did some good things. I thought we really got executing and started playing better in the second half. I think we struggled early in the first half. Josh threw two interceptions. I’m not sure either one of them were on him. Both of them were pressures, had a guy in his face when we threw the interceptions. So those are the things that we got to get corrected.”
Hoover had several plays when it seemed like he had an option to step and run but chose to remain in the pocket, and Dykes said the quarterback was extra cautious with the injury.
“We’ll look at that and see,” Dykes said. “He got pretty being banged up last week, and I think he was pretty cautious this week. But yes, I thought there were some times when he could have pulled the ball down and … potentially got us a couple of first downs.”
The Horned Frogs’ offense struggled in the first half, only scoring three points, and there was a smattering of boos as the team left the field after missing a 25-yard field goal to end the half.
The slow starts have been another recent problem for Hoover and the offense, as TCU has gone scoreless in the first quarter in four of its past five games.
“We have to execute better. I felt like we wasted a half of offense,” Dykes said. “I think that’s going to be something that we’re going to have to address moving forward. We just have gotten off to a slow start offensively, and we gotta get it fixed.”
TCU’s offense eventually got in a grove. The Horned Frogs had scoring opportunities on four straight drives through the second and third quarters and outgained the Cyclones by 160 yards in the game.
This loss makes it unlikely the Horned Frogs will be able to compete for the Big 12 title, but offensive lineman Coltin Deery explained his and the team’s mindset before their next matchup, a road game against BYU on Nov. 15.
“We still got three games left,” he said. “We still got to go out there and ball out. We gotta go play hard. We got practice hard this week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. We got to go balls to the wall and go hard. We got to be ready to go and play BYU next week.”