TCU 21, SMU 7

TCU prevailed Saturday against SMU in a contest that was unlike the Frogs' loss to Air Force last week except for one critical area: turnovers. TCU twice fumbled away the ball within a few yards of a score. In every other way, the game was as opposite its predecessor as possible: Andy Dalton struggled; the defense played progressively better throughout the game; Marcus Jackson shone in the game's longest drive; Aaron Brown played, and except for a fumble at the Mustangs' 3 yard line, played brilliantly; the Frogs didn't give up big plays-- but lost yards consistently in 5s and 10s.

But they won, and have the Iron Skillet back in their pantry.

Colorado State comes to Fort Worth, hoping to reverse a 10-game losing streak. The Rams have never beaten Gary Patterson's Frogs.

First Quarter: MWC analysis

A few thoughts on the MWC, one quarter of the way through the season.
One everybody's tongue: Air Force. The academy opened with arguably the scariest conference, and season, stretch: Utah, BYU and TCU in the first four games. Utah and TCU have both fallen to the academy, but BYU gets the Zoomies at home. Neither of the upsets came easily-- but the Falcons boast the conference's only 3-0 record, and appear to have positioned themselves as this year's surprise contender for the title.

Quarterbacks. Simply put, the MWC is loaded under center. Max Hall and Andy Dalton have exceeded expectations as freshmen; Karsten Sween and Donovan Porterie have not lost their respective freshmen magic; Travis Dixon and Tommy Grady have burst on the scene with solid performances. Kevin O'Connell is no longer a liability in sunny San Diego; Shaun Carney and Caleb Hanie are turning in solid senior years. Who's missing from this list? Brian Johnson, at Utah. Tommy Grady's outstanding performance against UCLA might keep Johnson in rehab longer than planned, however.

Out of Conference Play: the MWC has finally turned in a solid season out of conference. Utah State (twice), Baylor, Virginia, Arizona (twice), New Mexico State, and UCLA have all suffered losses against the MWC. A few surprises: BYU couldn't outpace Tulsa in a 1,000-yard, 100-point shootout in Oklahoma; Colorado State nearly topped Colorado and California; UNLV almost stopped Wisconsin's winning streak; New Mexico, in a strange game, lost to UTEP to open the season; the conference's victor against UCLA? Not BYU, but their sorely depleted rivals up I-15-- Utah. This was Tommy Grady's breakout party, and will be talked about on The Hill for years to come.

Dangerous sleeper: well, Air Force isn't a sleeper any longer, so the award goes to New Mexico, who boasts the league's best tandem at wide receiver to date, and a QB who has excelled in getting them the ball. Marcus Smith and Travis Brown will be household names for the conference before too long. Combine them with the nationally-underappreciated ground play by Rodney Furgeson, and New Mexico might have what it takes to threaten the conference's power structure, and finally win a bowl game for Rocky Long.

Re-loaded: BYU's offense, and TCU's defense. The classes of the league, each unit, appear to have lost none of their lustre. BYU has experienced almost no dropoff from last year's incredible production, despite losing its three top playmakers. TCU's defense finally coalesced against Air Force, holding the Falcon's tricky attack to just 3 points before a bizarre 17-point finale in the game's final minutes and overtime. The Frogs' defense has had to stifle opposing teams without the aid of a productive running offense, and a litany of turnovers in the red zone. The unit has performed admirably, and will be under much less pressure to produce near shut-outs as the Frogs heal and mature on the other side of the ball.

Disappointments: some of the league's marquee matchups turned into marquee routs. Oregon State stuffed Utah to open the season, and TCU's high hopes for a best-in-Texas claim were crushed a bad second half in Austin.

Air Force 20, TCU 17

How does a team rack up 320 passing yards, throw for 15 first downs, lead almost the whole game, hold its opponent to 17 points in regulation, and lose?

TCU showed the way, turning the ball over four times in the red zone, and generating almost no running game to speak of.

Air Force showed the way, capitalizing on every Frog mistake after halftime, including blocking a field goal that would have given the Frogs the lead with less than two minutes to play.

Notwithstanding the loss, TCU has much to look forward to for the remainder of the season. Aaron Brown and Joe Turner did not play, but Tommy Blake did, and did well, as did the defense generally. Dalton was poised, consistent and productive, and made some terrific throws. The receiving corps had a stellar game, hauling in pass after pass-- Massey, Brock, Moore and Dickerson were as sharp as ever. The team has eight days to heal and prepare for SMU and then the remainder of conference play.

When the Frogs get a playmaker back in the backfield, the Wimple confidently predicts that this offense will to its potential, and win most of its remaining games. And the Fort Worth Bowl (or Armed Forces Bowl, as it's now styled) is already within his scheduled Christmas vacation. Nice.

Texas 34, TCU 13

TCU held the Longhorns scoreless for the first half of Saturday's marquee matchup, but were unable to sustain any offensive drives in the third quarter. After playings defense for more than ten minutes in the third quarter, the Frogs ran out of gas, and were routed.

The Frogs never found their running game, which surprised nobody-- UT's rush defense was one of only two that ranked higher than TCU's own last year, and the Frogs' best tailback was injured last week and unavailable for the game.

TCU faces Air Force's triple-option attack in Colorado Springs on Thursday night.

What TCU takes to (and can bring home from) Austin

The immensity of tomorrow's game in Austin is worth a few words. TCU isn't playing Texas for just a win-- that could be done with less fanfare against almost any other program in the nation. The Frogs have not circled this came on their schedule so that they could bask in the national spotlight, or re-live the glory days of the Southwest Conference.

What's possible tomorrow is both the closing of the door to a painful adolescence, and the re-opening the path to a forgotten throne. When football was young, the Frogs reigned, and purple-clad legends named Baugh, O'Brien, Aldrich, Matthews, Swink and Lilly ruled. Fort Worth's dynasty was toppled by the Longhorns in the '60s, however, and by the time the Southwest Conference dissolved, TCU was accustomed to penury.

The Frogs were ignominiously born again, as it were, in that dissolution. Being orphaned by the state's politically powerful programs in the '90s, TCU grew, and has become surprisingly strong. But, like a fatherless young man who suddenly meets his deadbeat dad only to discover that he is an heir in the kingdom, the Horned Frogs have a chance Saturday to throw off their childhood demons, and live independently, among their grandfather's peers. And all the king's men are watching to see if he will do just that.

This is a tremulous moment-- it can be a coming-of-age for the ages. The whole world is watching, so to speak, for the first time. Some of them paid brief attention when TCU beat a weakened aristocrat in the 1998 Sun Bowl. More still cocked an eye toward Fort Worth's little private school when the Frogs took a 10-game winning streak to Hattiesburg in 2003. After that game they smiled like a parent who dusts off a lost child who's scraped his knee, and sends him home where he belongs-- to the other side of the tracks. More still took a double take, and said politically correct things when the Horny Toads waylaid Oklahoma, a reigning aristocrat on a usurped throne, in 2005-- in Norman, no less. But when the Frogs were destracted by the glad words, and toppled by another scrabbling SWC orphan, the watching world turned away again.

But that world was not the same. The comfortable confines on the rich side of the tracks seemed less safe, when a TCU or a Boise State could raid with so much success among them. Next fell Texas Tech in Fort Worth, and the chattering class began to hedge their bets whenever the Frogs were on the table.

And so tomorrow, amid a torrent of carefully hedged publicity, TCU goes to battle another of college football's ruling elite- the same princely program that ousted the Frogs from their own throne generations ago. It should not surprise us that TCU has everybody's attention now. Their foe is their own grandfather's foe, figuratively speaking; the modern doyen of Texas Football, the Frogs' own crowned brother who watched with secret glee as the Frogs withered, and when finally TCU was powerless to resist, ousted them from the kingdom altogether. Since then UT has crowned itself "State Champions" when it won less games than TCU; it has received the BCS Championship Trophy with the fallacious commendation, "On behalf of the eleven BCS conferences..."; it has countenanced-- nay, spawned-- the outrageous condenscension of TCU's privileged twin in Waco; in sum, UT-- the Frogs' own brother-- has declared the Horned Frogs bastards: illegitimate, irrelevant, underprivileged, ostracized.

And tomorrow, Texas must defend its house.

From forgotten ashes in Fort Worth have risen the heirs to the house that Baugh built. The Lone Star State's very center of gravity is unsettled anew, and the reigning gods of the state cannot find comfort in their Austin tower. Their dirty deeds are shouted from the rooftops by the very syccophants who cheered them: Thy Brother Lives, and Hath Returned!

Indeed, the true giants of Texas's football history will not be forgotten, and in the awesome shadow of their descendants does all of Texas shake.

TCU v. Texas-- hype

The Dallas Morning News points out that TCU will be a much tougher win for Texas than Arkansas State was, and the Indians almost upset the 'Horns. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram agrees. One Sports Illustrated columnist even forecasts (through a crystal ball) an upset on September 8. UT's coach is on the bandwagon, saying that TCU would flourish in the Big XII, and that he ranked TCU somewhere near 10th on his post-season coaches' ballot last season. We'd believe that more if we saw it, but the final ballots are, conveniently, not public. A UT fan and writer at Pegasus News is convinced the Frogs will upset the Horns.

Sporting News, SI.com, CBSSports, The Washington Post, and CSTV all have color pieces on the game. The Sporting News has two reprises and a Q&A with Chase Ortiz; ESPN one; the Austin-American Statesman has run dozens of articles about TCU and its tilt with Texas. Here're a few. Stewart Mandel predicts Texas will win by one point.

CFN's team preview for 2007 highlights this game, as does nearly every other pre-season look at the Frogs. Top's Corner at KF.C has been replete with articles focused on September 8 since the middle of the summer. CBS Sports lists the game in its "Key Dates" script on its front page (this won't archive, but it's been posted there for months.) In short, this game is probably the most intensely scrutinized game TCU has played since Davey O'Brien was under center in the 1930s.

TCU 27, Baylor 0

In the 1100th football game TCU has ever played, the Frogs engineered a shutout of their oldest rival, evening the all-time series with the Baylor Bears at 49 wins each (with 7 ties). Red-shirt freshman Andy Dalton commanded the offense with remarkable poise, throwing 18 completions in 30 attempts (60%) for 205 yards. He worked behind a strong performance from the offensive line, and in tandem with his senior receivers. Marcus Brock caught five passes, and four other receivers had two catches, including a twisting, diving touchdown catch by senior Irvin Dickerson.

The Frog defense returned to usual form by about halftime. Baylor moved the ball with some success at first- amassing 204 yards by halftime. The Frogs upped their intensity in the second half, though, holding the Bears to only 78 yards in the third and fourth quarters. The Frogs intercepted Baylor four times.

Highlights here.

Tommy Blake did not play, but has returned to practice and is expected to start against Texas on Saturday. Aaron Brown and Sir Demarcus Bledsoe sustained injuries; Brown will likely return to play in a week or two; Bledsoe may be out longer.