SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
Texas Christian University quarterback Max Duggan was having a ball in the team’s locker room after Saturday’s Fiesta Bowl fairy tale triumph was now history.
“I can tell you this much,” Duggan said as his gold and purple supporters were still celebrating in the stands, on the field, and especially in the Horned Frog lockers. “We will be the underdog again in the championship game.”
It got a few chuckles from his teammates but running back Emari Demercado had a response, “Yo Max”, he said, “they’re still playing the other game, but you’re right they’ll still have us as the underdog.”
No doubt about that, especially since No. 1 undefeated Georgia held off No. 4 Ohio State, 42-41, in game two, in the Peach Bowl played in Atlanta at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and that ended in the at the exact same time as the New Year’s ball was dropping at the usual site of Times Square.
No doubt it was not what the viewers wanted or expected. They were tuned in to a rousing back-and-forth tilt that concluded when the ball dropped as the Buckeyes were missing a game-winning field goal. It brought the Bulldogs’ celebration, the packed Times Square excitement and now No. 3 TCU knew who comes next.
Yup, it was dem growling Bulldawgs coming up next and the Horned Frogs being tagged underdogs. Georgia, now unbeaten in a dozen starts, was the early line favorite at 5 and one-half points and game time choice at an even 8.
To TCU, which held off the late challenge at Glendale, Ariz., for a resounding 51-45 victory, it doesn’t matter what the line is now. It will arrive at 13-2 after grabbing an early 14-0 advantage and then withstanding a frantic second-half surge by No. 2 Michigan to hang on to a 51-45 win that sent the Wolverines packing at 13-1.
It took head coach Sonny Dykes needing this second season to get this far after his initial campaign brought a losing one. Now the private school in Fort Worth waited six weeks to get ranked this time, and almost every step of the way its worthiness was doubted. It was first left out of the Big 12 when it initially formed in the mid-1990s, and now becomes the first to play for an individual championship since Texas in 2009.
Said Dykes: “At some point, you were kind of just listening to what everybody said,”
But only good came out of this one as his team took on the big, bad Big Ten champions and turned this into a circa-2010 Big 12-style score fest.
“We heard all week how they were going to out-physical us,” TCU linebacker Dee Winters said.
Well, it was the highest scoring Fiesta Bowl ever and the second-highest College Football Playoff game behind Georgia’s 54-48 Rose Bowl victory over Oklahoma on Jan. 1, 2018.
Maybe it was fitting for the little private school that won seven straight games by 10 points or fewer. In its regular-season final, it lost by a point to Kansas State when it was stranded on fourth time on the last play and stalled there.
Behind the offense directed by Duggan, it turned in back-to-back touchdowns, converted both extra points and it was already up 14-0. It stayed ahead, didn’t have all that much trouble moving the ball, but you had to figure Michigan wasn’t going away.
The Wolverines got to with 28-17, then 31-21, but Duggan ran for a touchdown and added a field goal to make it 41-21, but back came frustrated Michigan. It closed to 41-28, a field goal made 41-31, and after TCU turned the ball over on a botched-up played, there was 3:31 left when it became scary for the Horned Frogs.
The Wolverines went from midfield to reach the end zone on a fake hand-off that became a pass from quarterback J.J. McCarthy to Roman Wilson, and it was now 41-38 with the PAT. But TCU had something left. Duggan hit first-round draft pick Quintin Johnson down the sidelines for a 76-yard touchdown to make it 48-38 after the point-after, then a field goal following a McCarthy interception, and the final seconds rang down with Michigan having one time out.
As the purple-clad Horned Frog fans were drowning out the Wolverine fans, the dream was still alive despite McCarthy finding a receiver who was tackled and then hit again by the other defender who hit the lower part of his helmet. But after a review for a possible targeted hit, the officials ruled it was not a targeting call and TCU then ran off a pair of kneels and it was all over.
“Look,” said Michigan head coach Jim Harbough, “it was a hell of a game except they deserved the win. TCU just hung with us, did well on both sides of the ball and I wish them luck against the Georgia-Ohio State winner.”
Right on coach, what followed his words was that game ended at exactly midnight and the ball came down on Times Square to the confusion of most.
Happy New Year as the disappointed Wolverines packed up and the joyous Horned Frogs take the next road when they play no doubt the favored Bulldogs on Jan. 9 at the home of the Los Angeles Rams in Inglewood, Calif., which happens to be not far from Hollywood.
Reaction from TCU? Well not all that much, except it down know the odds that will come down from Las Vegas will not be in its favor. In its favor though is only the final score counts and you can check that with Harbough and company.
