Steven Johnson: A suddenly surging TCU looks like a viable Big 12 contender
It was around this juncture last year that TCU (3-1) began to realize that it had the potential to compete for something special.
After dispatching SMU 34-17 in the fourth game of this season, it appears the reports of the Horned Frogs demise after the Week 1 shocker to Colorado were grossly exaggerated.
The Horned Frogs have shown a substantial amount of improvement from Week 1 to Week 4 on the defensive side of the ball. Over the last three games, TCU has only allowed two offensive touchdowns and one of those came in garbage time against the Mustangs.
The rapid improvement is a testament to both the players and the coaching staff. Both parties took the Week 1 loss hard, but now that game is behind them and the defense is starting to play its best ball right before TCU jumps back into Big 12 play.
“We took some lumps, but it’s lot easier to prepare for an offense when you know where people are going to be,” Dykes said. “I’m not making excuses, they beat us and I did a poor job coaching and we didn’t play as well as we should have. It makes a difference when you have film.
“I’m really pleased with the progress we’ve made defensively. We really limited (SMU’s) big plays, we knew they were going to take some shots down field. They hit us on a couple, but overall I thought we did a really good job with those deep balls.”
Saturday was the best game the secondary’s played all season. By my count there was just one coverage breakdown all game.
The communication is better, the synergy is better and when the pass rush is unleashed it’s also better. Getting to this point wasn’t easy and required the Horned Frogs to look deep within after being embarrassed against the Buffaloes on national TV.
“We’ve been staying loyal to each other, especially when we’re down or the game is close,” corner Josh Newton said. “We made a lot of adjustments at practice and it’s been foot on the gas. Coach Dykes has done a great job of pushing us. The reason we’ve been coming out on top the last couple weeks is because of the way we practiced.
“It all comes back to that. Practice, details, trusting in each other, communicating and trusting in our coaches’ gameplan.”
Thanks to the gameplan of defensive coordinator Joe Gillespie and the leadership of Dykes, TCU is only allowing 12 points per game in its last three games. Is that sustainable? Maybe not, but even modest regression would still give the Horned Frogs a good enough defense to contend for the Big 12 crown.
And that brings us to our big picture perspective after Saturday’s victory. As you survey the conference landscape there’s a clear path to reaching Arlington for the Big 12 title game.
Texas looks good and is clearly the best team in the Big 12. Oklahoma? The Sooners look better defensively, but we won’t know much about Oklahoma until the Red River Rivalry game in two weeks. Oklahoma and TCU do share a common opponent with the Mustangs and both won by 17.
Texas Tech has been one of the biggest disappointments of the year and just lost its starting quarterback. Baylor? The Bears have looked like the worst team in the Big 12.
Kansas State? The Wildcats are in a similar position as TCU with one loss by a field goal to an unranked opponent and both teams have gone through some growing pains replacing stars from last year.
Kansas looks good, but the Jayhawks aren’t on the schedule. BYU and West Virginia have performed better than their preseason expectations, but the Horned Frogs should be favored in both games.
This isn’t a declaration that the Horned Frogs will breeze through the rest of the schedule and go 8-0. No, there will be more roadblocks and adversity throughout the season and maybe another loss.
But what we’ve seen from Dykes team over the last two weeks is an encouraging sign of how this program will respond to adversity. Think about it, TCU was blown out by Georgia in the national title game and then in the first game of the year you’re upset in one of the most-watched games of the season?
It could’ve been an early crisis point, but instead TCU used it as fuel.
“You can look at the first game of the season and say what you want,” tight end Jared Wiley said. “It was a wake up call or whatever you want to call it, we’ve been rolling on all cylinders offense, defense, special teams. It’s been really nice to see.”
The scary thing is TCU actually isn’t firing on all cylinders just yet. Despite scoring 34 points, it was another game where the offense felt like it left points on the board. Many teams would feel elated to average 38.2 points per game.
But for TCU, being a top-25 scoring offense isn’t enough. The Horned Frogs want to crack the top-10 and feel like they’re close to breaking through.
“We’re close, I tell them all the time the top is going to blow off,” Chandler Morris said. “We’re very close and it’s only a matter of time and there’s going to be a moment it’s going to happen. Everybody believes that.”
TCU still believes that all of its goals are still within reach. You should too.
