From the top: TCU can’t play underdog role against Texas

TCU rolls into Austin for a big game Thursday, but it won’t have the underdog role on its side.

It is the Horned Frogs from the private school in Fort Worth, not the Longhorns from one of the state’s flagship universities, who are favored in the Thanksgiving night game and who have a shot at the Big 12 championship.

The underdog role has served the Horned Frogs well. They have been the plucky mid-major team crashing the elite parties. They have been the team that surprised the top powers. They have been the team saying, “Why not us?”

Now TCU (9-1) is one of the elite — a member of a Power 5 conference, No. 5 in the College Football Playoff rankings, favored by 6 1/2 points against the Longhorns and three games better in the conference standings.

It was an upset two years ago when the Horned Frogs won at Texas. It wouldn’t be called that this year.

Although it might help TCU to think that way.

“We’re still trying to prove ourselves to the Big 12,” safety Sam Carter said. “You can win games, but if you don’t win the conference, you’re not on top. People will say, ‘They had a great year, but it was only OK.’ ”

The season for the Horned Frogs has been more than OK, obviously. It has a chance to be more than great if they can win their final two regular-season games.

They know it. Texas knows it.

It’s hard to play the underdog like that. This isn’t 2012.

“Now we’re going into their place as the ranked team, and we know people are going to want to knock us off even more,” said junior center Joey Hunt, who was on the team for the 20-13 victory two years ago. “They’re going to want to win just as bad. But being a ranked team is a different scenario. All games are important but stressed more because our rank is higher.”

Coach Gary Patterson has spent the past week and a half, if not the whole season, trying to remind the Frogs of who they are and where they came from.

He likes the underdog role. But he also wants a confident team that carries an inner belief that it can win any game.

“If you look at the history of TCU, of us being on the outside looking in when we were in the Mountain West Conference and every other conference that we’ve been in, that’s what we had to do,” Patterson said. “We just had to take care of our own business. We didn’t have any control over going to the Fiesta Bowl. We didn’t have any control over going to the Rose Bowl. Everything had to line up just exactly right. … None of us is going to have a bunch to say about it. All we can do is win.”

As the TCU wins have piled up, they have become less surprising.

But no less appreciated by the players who went through a 4-8 season a year ago, losing four games in conference by a total of 11 points. This season, the Horned Frogs have won by as little as 1 point and as many as 56.

“We’re able to win the close games. That’s the major thing I see,” Carter said. “When you think about those first years, we weren’t getting blown out. We couldn’t finish, win the close games. Once you get in a conference over time, you just go with the flow. Coaches understand the conference better. That’s the key this year. We’re winning the close games.”

And looking less like the underdog than ever.

TCU (9-1, 6-1)

at Texas (6-5, 5-3)

6:30 p.m. Thursday, FS1

Storylines

Going up early. TCU has been really good at this, scoring first eight times, averaging 13.2 points in the first quarter and leading 14-0 or better seven times. The Frogs don’t want to play catch-up against the Texas pass rush.

Game control. Whatever the playoff committee calls it, they want to see it out of the contenders. The members are counting lead changes and looking for signs of dominance. TCU has had plenty of games like that.

Stopping the run. The running game delivers the power in the Texas offense. Playing the run is a strength of the TCU defense. If the Horned Frogs take that away, it leaves the game in the hands of an inconsistent passing game.

This story was originally published November 26, 2014 at 10:59 AM with the headline "From the top: TCU can’t play underdog role against Texas."