The best thing for the TCU/Baylor rivalry is the outcome everyone but the Bears dreads
No matter how much time passes, 61-58 remains the tattoo that will never need a touch up.
Some moments, and some games, last forever.
No one of note from No. 5 Baylor’s 61-58 win over No. 9 TCU on Oct. 11, 2014 is with their respective team.
The respective head coaches from that game, Baylor’s Art Briles and TCU’s Gary Patterson, were essentially fired for just slightly different reasons.
The echoes of that cloudy afternoon in Waco remain on both programs; those who played in 61-58 will never forget it; the more than 245,140 who were there inside of McLane Stadium, which seats 45,140, still talk about 61-58.
The circumstances for that 2014 game are decidedly different, but there are enough similarities for No. 4 TCU’s game against Baylor this Saturday in Waco that it justifiably scares a lot of the Frog faithful.
Baylor is in the position to do to TCU what TCU did to Baylor one year ago. And, depending on your POV, back in 2014.
Baylor, the preseason pick to win the Big 12, can salvage what has thus far been a disappointing season.
The Bears are 6-4, and just lost too much talent from last year’s team that finished 12-2, won the Big 12 title game, and the Sugar Bowl over Ole Miss.
In the first week of November of 2021, Baylor was 7-1 and on the edge of being in the discussion for the college football playoff.
That week, TCU was 3-5 and preparing to play its first game without Gary Patterson for the first time in more than 20 years.
Baylor came to Fort Worth for its game against TCU ranked 12th, and lost 30-28 to backup quarterback Chandler Morris.
It was Baylor’s last loss of the season, and while it was great material for a wonderfully nasty college football rivalry it was the end of BU’s remote chances of making the playoffs.
A Baylor win on Saturday will end TCU’s chances of finishing in the top four of the final college football rankings. There is no way a one-loss TCU team will be included in the playoff.
Both Baylor and TCU know this first-hand from that 2014 season.
On Oct. 11, 2014, TCU led Baylor 58-37 with 11:38 remaining in the game. Baylor ripped off 24 straight to win 61-58.
One week later, No. 4 Baylor lost at unranked West Virginia by 14 points.
Both Baylor and TCU remained in the playoff discussion, but their respective one-losses ultimately killed their chances at making the playoffs. They shared the Big 12 regular season title, and at the time the conference had no championship game.
In the final week of the season, TCU was No. 3, Ohio State No. 5 and Baylor No. 6.
Baylor players, coaches, fans, board members, professors, janitorial staffers and administrators were justifiably irate that their head-to-head win over TCU was downgraded to a penny stock.
The Frogs defeated Iowa State in Fort Worth in the final regular season game, 55-3. As Patterson feared before the game, the outcome didn’t matter.
The committee dropped the Frogs to sixth, and put Baylor at No. 5. The committee put Ohio State in at No. 4, and the Buckeyes won the national title.
That remains arguably the best team in TCU history, and it was worthy of a playoff spot.
Eight years later, and other than the Big 12 adding a cash-grab conference title game, not that much has changed.
TCU can now see its first ever berth in the college football playoff. They are so close to getting out of the car to stretch their legs, and celebrate their arrival at a destination where they clearly are not wanted.
They are also not there.
What they are trying to do is statistically beyond difficult.
The Big 12 has existed since 1996, and five times has a team won all of its regular season games, and the conference title game. (The Big 12 was without a title game from 2011 to 2016).
The last team to do this was Texas in 2009, when the Longhorns lost the BCS title game to Alabama.
Undefeated is TCU’s task, and only chance.
If the No. 4 Horned Frogs can make it, they would be the first team from Texas to be invited to the Uppity Snob Room of The College Football Playoff We Really Don’t Want You Here Lawn and Country Club.
One loss kills all of this.
The rules are different for a Baylor, and a TCU.
As much as Baylor can empathize with TCU, this is still Baylor versus TCU.
Nothing would delight Baylor more than crushing the Hypnotoads with a loss on Saturday.
Such an outcome would be worthy a new tattoo.
This story was originally published November 18, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
