First of all, Thanksgiving weekend in football season should be reserved for archrivals TCU and Baylor to confront their differences \u2014 ecumenical, football, or otherwise.<\/p>\n
Not doing so is a violation of the spirit of hating one\u2019s neighbor. And let\u2019s be honest: trying to live a life grounded in Scripture while competing in cutthroat college athletics \u2014 with a Joel Osteen\u2013size collection plate at play \u2014 is no small feat, especially when the competition tests both your discipline and your sanctification.<\/p>\n
Lots of gray area and mixed messages in this messy little Western Civilization of ours.<\/p>\n
Speaking of talking out of both sides of the mouth, I received this text message at halftime of TCU\u2019s regular-season finale against Cincinnati on Saturday from a buddy and barstool sports critic who has had lots of opinions on TCU football this season \u2014 well, every season \u2014 and has never liked Kendal Briles because, well, he\u2019s a Briles, son of onetime Baylor football lord Art, aka the devil incarnate.<\/p>\n
Hey, 31 points at halftime is pretty damn impressive.<\/p>\n
So, we\u2019re not calling for Kendal Briles\u2019 head this week? Or Sonny Dykes\u2019? (It\u2019s no wonder the coaching circle is so tight. They all have in common the threat of being put in front of a firing squad at one point \u2014 several points \u2014 in time.)<\/p>\n
It must be hell being accountable as an amateur sports critic \u2014 we\u2019ll call them \u201cKaren\u201d \u2014 on the social channels, filling out figurative Yelp reviews on the days either the ball bounces the wrong way for TCU or \u2014 gasp \u2014 the days the Horned Frogs have the gall to not play well.<\/p>\n
Since when, Adam and Eve, could we not trust the human condition to be perfect?<\/p>\n
And so it is: TCU must live with a terrible\u00a08-4 season after a 45-23 victory over Cincinnati on Saturday.<\/p>\n
A little-known fact: The best coaching jobs are often done when things aren\u2019t going well \u2014 when the \u201cdangling carrots\u201d teams play for, rankings and conference championships, are removed one by one, as at TCU this season.<\/p>\n
A friend of mine who coached on Moe Iba\u2019s staff 30-plus years ago fondly recalls Moe\u2019s first season, a long 9-19 campaign in 1987\u201388. Lots of adversity. \u201cOur best coaching job was getting to nine wins in 1988,\u201d he jokes, but he\u2019s not joking.<\/p>\n
If F.A. Dry, who had 12 wins in six seasons, had ever gotten to eight wins in consecutive seasons \u2014 much less a College Football Playoff championship season \u2014 he might still be at TCU at age 94.<\/p>\n
The fans \u2014 short for fanatics \u2014 will be fans. It\u2019s a good thing they care, but it\u2019s like the kid whose parent says, \u201cThe belt is coming out only because I care.\u201d Do you have to care that much?<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought our last two weeks of practice were exceptional,\u201d said head coach Sonny Dykes. \u201cJust really proud of the guys for doing that. Sometimes it’s hard to do when all the motivating carrots that are out there dangling in front of ’em kind of disappear, and I think it just tells you a lot about those guys and our program and the culture that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dykes called Saturday\u2019s win the most complete game the Frogs have played since rearranging Belichick and his girlfriend\u2019s furniture way back on Labor Day.<\/p>\n
Quarterback Josh Hoover had more touchdowns (4) than interceptions (3), going 19-for-22 for 316 yards. Eric McAlister of Azle collected most of those yards, finishing with 101 receiving yards and moving into second place on the single-season charts with 1,121 yards on the year. By going over 100 yards for the sixth time this season, he tied Josh Doctson\u2019s 2015 mark for the most in a single season in TCU history.<\/p>\n
Had there been no time limit, Jeremy Payne might still be running. The running back had 174 yards on 26 carries \u2014 the most for a TCU runner since Kendre Miller\u2019s 185 at Texas Tech in 2021. Payne\u2019s 218 yards from scrimmage were the most by a TCU running back since Robert Merrill\u2019s 231 at Houston in 2003.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been a tough couple of weeks,\u201d Hoover said. \u201cI’m not going to sit up here and lie. When you lose three games or two games in a row, then the third game, we had a bunch of bad stuff happen, didn\u2019t play very well to our capabilities late in the game \u2026 it can kind of take a toll on you. And, so, I think over the last three weeks I’ve been really just trying to keep my head down and keep on working, keep on pushing and understand that at some point we’re going to break through it and have a really good game.\u201d<\/p>\n
No one with the program will tell you they\u2019re ecstatic about the season.<\/p>\n
Coming off a road victory at West Virginia, the Frogs \u2014 like everyone else battling injuries \u2014 came home but couldn\u2019t hold an 11-point lead in a frustrating loss to Iowa State. They went into a lion\u2019s den in Provo the next week, getting beaten by No. 12 BYU.<\/p>\n
A lot of teams would have folded up the tents, packed it up, and quietly retreated from 2025.<\/p>\n
But TCU didn\u2019t. With only two games left and little tangible things to play for, they not only regrouped, they got better, ending the regular season with a victory on the road over ranked Houston and, on Saturday, over Cincinnati \u2014 a seven-win team with, like TCU, five Big 12 victories.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s an indication of good coaching and a good culture within a program.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s difficult to win college football games. There are no participation trophies. It\u2019s a highly competitive field with only one winner week after week.<\/p>\n
I like my sports competitions to reflect life itself. Life is often sloppy. Lots\u00a0of banged-up ankles. Lots of potholes. Plenty of wrong turns, bad bounces, and bad decisions. The things you never see coming come at you like shingles\u00a0in an F5 tornado. However,\u00a0when you do finally hit open field, it\u2019s usually because you kept your feet moving long after your scripted plans went up in flames. You keep\u00a0going.<\/p>\n
Ron Washington, the erstwhile manager of the Texas Rangers and noted sports philosopher in North Texas, once remarked many years ago on a squeeze bunt attempt that went terribly wrong for the Rangers in the late innings: \u201cSometimes it works \u2026 sometimes it don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
He shrugged his shoulders. Next question.<\/p>\n
Indeed, Wash, indeed. That doesn\u2019t mean, sports cynics, it wasn\u2019t the right call.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First of all, Thanksgiving weekend in football season should be reserved for archrivals TCU and Baylor to confront…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":415749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,39425,10595,1369,1318,7371,7372,13814,122630,45435,10077,358,7453,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-415748","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-big-12","10":"tag-cincinnati","11":"tag-college-sports","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-fort-worth","14":"tag-fortworth","15":"tag-john-henry","16":"tag-josh-hoover","17":"tag-sonny-dykes","18":"tag-tcu","19":"tag-texas","20":"tag-top-story","21":"tag-tx","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115640484886231644","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}