CiCi’s and heartbreak: TCU’s Niko Small remembers 2014 playoff snub

Niko Small wasn’t part of the TCU football team in 2014, but the Arlington Bowie product was already committed. He felt like he was part of the Frogs family.

So Small had just as much disappointment as anyone when TCU had been left out of the College Football Playoff. The Frogs, somehow, dropped from No. 3 in the country to No. 6 despite winning the season finale 55-3 over Iowa State.

The team that benefited the most that final week? Ohio State.

With the Buckeyes coming to town on Saturday, Small recalled that infamous snub on Tuesday.

“It broke my heart,” Small said. “I was a commit here at the time. It broke my heart. I remember where I was and everything. I just looked … I couldn’t believe it. That’s their job up there at the college football thing to figure that stuff out, all that. I know our job is to go out there on Saturday and play our best football. We’re going to try to do our job and make their job easier hopefully.”

So where was Small that day?

“I was sitting in a CiCi’s,” Small said, laughing. “I was watching on the TV and we had just beat Iowa State 53-to-something. I watched it, I saw the people come out, I said, ‘Oh my gosh, they really did that.’ It hurt me, but then when I got here I understood there’s a lot of things that go into it, a lot of things you can’t really just measure on paper. So I understood it and we just try to get back there ever since.”

A win on Saturday will certainly boost the Frogs profile and thrust them into the playoff conversation going into Big 12 play.

But Small knows there’s a lot that can happen between now and then.

“Like they tell us all the time – they remember November,” Small said. “We’re a little far away from that, so we’ve just got to play every game, become 3-0, then 4-0, and do what we need to do.”

This story was originally published September 12, 2018 at 9:57 AM.