What to know about No. 13 TCU’s double-overtime thriller over No. 8 Oklahoma State
For awhile it seemed like TCU wouldn’t be able to climb out of a 24-7 deficit, but with persistence on defense and creativity on offense the Horned Frogs battled back to push No. 8 Oklahoma State to overtime.
The two teams went back and forth until the second overtime as Kendre Miller rumbled in from two yards to lift TCU to a 43-40 Big 12 win.
For long stretches of the afternoon it appeared TCU would be lucky to keep the Top-15 battle close, but the No. 13 Horned Frogs just kept making plays and capitalized on the inability of the No. 8 Cowboys offense to put them away.
“Heck of a win, our guys hung in there,” head coach Sonny Dykes said. “We made every mistake we could humanly make. Our guys just kind of kept hanging in there and battling, I really thought we had a good mentality at halftime. I didn’t really get a sense that anybody panicked.”
It was the first time in program history that the Horned Frogs defeated three ranked opponents in a row.
How TCU pulled off the dramatic comeback:
TCU’s defense stands tall
Oklahoma State blitzed the TCU defense early as Spencer Sanders led two easy touchdown drives that he finished off with his legs in the first quarter. The Horned Frogs allowed 153 yards in the first quarter on an average of 8.5 yards per play. It would appear the defense was in for a long game, but Joe Gillespie’s unit buckled down as time went by.
The Cowboys held to just 16 points the rest of regulation and had a mere 58 yards in the second quarter and only 32 in the fourth. Bud Clark made an acrobatic interception of Spencer Sanders to give TCU life late in the fourth. The defense sacked Spencer Sanders twice and had five tackles for loss.
The defense was the biggest reason the Horned Frogs had a chance late to win.
“I think for us, as a defense, we went in too hyped up,” linebacker Dee Winters said. We were kind of overrunning plays. Coaches just told us to calm down and play defense like we have the past five games.We did better in the second half of that and executed.”
Spencer Sanders went just 16 of 36 while TCU held the Cowboys to just 3.4 yards per carry.
Duggan does enough
Through the first five weeks of the season, Max Duggan was playing as well as any quarterback in the country. But the Oklahoma State defense was able to keep him off rhythm all afternoon. When he wasn’t throwing to Quentin Johnston, Duggan had a difficult time finding success with his other receivers, but if it isn’t broke don’t fix it right?
Duggan threw a touchdown pass in the fourth quarter to Jared Wiley and in overtime to Quentin Johnston. It wasn’t his best game of the season. Far from it. But he made enough plays down the stretch and avoided costly mistakes even while the offense wasn’t clicking.
“Max Duggan continues to play as good as football as any quarterback I’ve ever been around,” Dykes said. “He’s kind of symbolic of this football team. We’re a team of overachievers.”
Offensive coordinator Garrett Riley showed some creative play calling that led to those two wide-open touchdown passes.
On Wiley’s touchdown, Emari Demercado took a direct snap from the center, handed it to Max Duggan who found a wide open Jared Wiley for a 10-yard touchdown with less than two minutes remaining.
After throwing a strike to Johnston for a touchdown in the first overtime, Duggan helped set up the game-winning score with a 12-yard run. Duggan finished with 286 yards passing and 57 yards on the ground with three total touchdowns.
“This is the reason why you stay here. This is why the guys want to be at TCU, why they want to be in Fort Worth and play for this program and play in front of these fans. This is what college football is all about, it’s a special one,” Duggan said.
Johnston is officially unlocked
For much of the game, Quentin Johnston was the lone source of offense for TCU. At one point the receiver had 69 of TCU’s 129 total yards. Against a stiffer defense than Kansas’, Johnston had his second straight 100-yard game and had another catch that will likely be all over ESPN’s SportsCenter tonight.
Johnston leaped over a Cowboy defender and made a tough, twisting catch that went 48 yards. It helped set up the one-yard touchdown from Max Duggan that made it 14-7 at the end of the first quarter. Johnston came up with another clutch play on TCU’s game-tying drive. He caught a pass, stiff armed a defender and raced 30 yards to get TCU in Oklahoma State territory.
“Him and Max believe in each other and trust in each other,” Dykes said. “They’re on the same page. They’re thinking the same way, seeing things the same way. He was very workman like, he does such a great job of attacking after catching the ball.”
Johnston caught his second touchdown of the year in the first overtime period. Johnston finished with eight receptions for 180 yards and continues to show why he’s viewed as a potential first round pick.
“It’s not easy to play, let alone win in college football. The new staff instilled a lot of extra confidence in us, extra discipline I like to think of myself as a player that rises to the occasion. With that mindset I just have to go out and prove it every week,” Johnston said.
Cowboys out-execute in first half
TCU outgained Oklahoma State 235 to 211 in the first half. The Horned Frogs held Spencer Sanders to just 8 of 17 passing, but somehow TCU found itself down 24-13 at the break. It was pretty simple to understand why as the execution by the Cowboys was just better than TCU’s in the first 30 minutes.
Oklahoma State has one of the country’s best third-down defenses. The Cowboys held TCU to just two of eight conversions. Meanwhile Sanders kept the chains moving 50% (4 of 8) of the time. It also didn’t help that TCU had a rare turnover from punt returner Derius Davis. The Cowboys scored all four times they entered the red zone. The Horned Frogs only had two opportunities and scored on one while squandering the other.
TCU went for it on fourth down with a reverse to Derius Davis that was snuffed out by the Cowboys with TCU down 24-7.
“I thought for the first time this season we were a little tight. I thought we were in the first half against Colorado and I thought we were a little tight tonight,” Dykes said. “Maybe they picked that up from me, I tried not to give them any reason to think of this game differently. It seemed like we played not to make mistakes in the first half instead of playing free.”
Mixed bag on special teams
The Horned Frogs have been pretty solid in the third phase of the game until they faced the Cowboys. Two special teams blunders proved to be the difference in the first half. The first one came after the Horned Frogs got a much needed three and out against the Cowboys offense. With a chance to tie it at 14, Derius Davis muffed the punt and Oklahoma State recovered at the TCU 24.
“I’ve never seen him do that, I’ve never seen him drop one in practice. It’s a left footed punter and a weird ball off the punter’s left foot,” Dykes said. “We tried to simulate this week with the jug machine, but it wasn’t the same thing.”
The Cowboys settled for a field goal to move ahead 17-7. Then after TCU had to punt it appeared the Horned Frogs would be the beneficiaries of a muffed punt themselves, but the ball hit a Horned Frog player and TCU was flagged for kick catch interference. Oklahoma State got the ball at the TCU 47 and scored a few plays later as Spencer Sanders connected with John Paul Richardson with 10 minutes left before halftime to give the Cowboys a commanding 24-7 lead.
It’s worth noting that Griffin Kell did hit all three of his field goal attempts while Davis set up two scores with solid punt returns in the second half.
This story was originally published October 15, 2022 at 6:40 PM with the headline "What to know about No. 13 TCU’s double-overtime thriller over No. 8 Oklahoma State."
