TCU Horned Frogs football
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For current information on this topic, see 2008 TCU Horned Frogs football team |
| Texas Christian University football | |||
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| 2008 TCU Horned Frogs football team | |||
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| First season | 1896 | ||
| Staff | |||
| Athletic director | Dr. Daniel Morrison | ||
| Head coach | Gary Patterson | ||
| 8th year, 62–25–0 | |||
| Stadium | |||
| Home stadium | Amon Carter Stadium | ||
| Stadium capacity | 44,008 | ||
| Stadium surface | Grass | ||
| Location | Fort Worth, Texas | ||
| League/Conference | |||
| Conference | Mountain West | ||
| Team records | |||
| All-time record | 545–509–57 (.517) | ||
| Postseason bowl record | 10–13–1 | ||
| Awards | |||
| Conference titles | 14 | ||
| Heisman winners | 1 | ||
| All-Americans | 36 | ||
| Pageantry | |||
| Colors | Purple and White | ||
| Fight song | TCU Fight | ||
| Mascot | Super Frog | ||
| Website | GoFrogs.com | ||
The TCU Horned Frogs football team is the interscholastic football team at Texas Christian University. TCU competes as a member of the Mountain West Conference. The Frogs have won two national championships and fourteen conference championships. Additionally, they have had some legendary players, including Sammy Baugh, Davey O'Brien, and LaDainian Tomlinson.
The Horned Frogs play their home games in Amon G. Carter Stadium, which is located on campus in Fort Worth. The stadium opened in 1930 and holds 44,008.[1] The current head coach of the program is Gary Patterson.
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[edit] History
[edit] The beginning
TCU's first year of football was 1896, when it still went by the name AddRan College. That year the team's record was 1-1-1. Its first win came against Toby’s Business College by the score of 8-6, apparently not having to use any substitutes.[2] In the era prior to joining the Southwest Conference (SWC) in 1923, TCU amassed a record of 89-84-19. Two years stick out the most for the Horned Frogs. In 1912, TCU went 8-1-0 and scored 230 points while only allowing 53 points the whole season season. The Frogs' one loss came against the University of Texas Longhorns, a team they wouldn’t beat until 1929.[3] In 1920, TCU won its first conference title while it was a member of the Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association (TIAA). The Horned Frogs' 9-1-0 record earned them a spot in the Fort Worth Classic, also known as the Dixie Bowl, against Centre College. The game was played in Fort Worth, but TCU would lose the game 63-7.[3]
[edit] Early Southwest Conference era
In 1923, TCU endured a 5-game losing streak during its first year in the SWC, but it earned a 2-1-0 conference record and a 4-5-0 overall record. One of the most notable losses that year was a 40-0 decision against TCU's emerging rival, the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Mustangs, whose record was 9-0 that year. The Mustangs were the champions of the SWC that year.[4] The next year, TCU would finish in last place with a 1-5 SWC record and another 4-5 overall record.[5] The Horned Frogs wouldn’t hit last place again until 1953[3]. Matty Bell, who began coaching the Frogs in 1923, had his best year in 1928, his last year as coach. That year's only losses came at home 7-6 to the Baylor University Bears and to Texas by a score of 6-0. That year the Frogs finished the year third place in the conference at 8-2-0 overall and 3-2 in conference play.[6]
The 1929 season saw the arrival of Coach Francis Schmidt and TCU's first SWC title. The title was won in the last game of the year on November 30, 1929 against SMU. Coming into the game TCU led SMU in the conference standings. TCU had 4 wins, while SMU's conference record was 3-0-1. Since this was the last conference game of the year for both teams, TCU could win its first SWC title with a win or a tie. The first half of the game was scoreless, but in the third quarter Weldon “Speedy” Mason tacked on 40 yards to a 16-yard pass from SMU quarterback Bob Gilbert. After the extra point, the Mustangs led 7-0. TCU wouldn't score until its second time on the SMU] 1-yard line in the fourth quarter. That’s when TCU quarterback Howard Grubbs ran behind All-SWC fullback Harlos Green and Mike Brumbelow for the game-tying score. The Frogs left plenty of time on the clock for SMU to answer their score, but Grubbs, now playing defense, intercepted Gilbert's pass. TCU then ran the clock out to force the tie and to win its first SWC title.[7]
[edit] Dutch Meyer/Abe Martin era
1935 began the second year for TCU coach Dutch Meyer. That year TCU and SMU again met to decide not only the SWC title but the first trip to the Rose Bowl for a team from the SWC. Grantland Rice of the New York Sun reported it as the Game of the Century and reported the following:
In a TCU Stadium that seated 30,000 spectators, over 36,000 wildly excited Texans and visitors from every corner of the map packed, jammed, and fought their way into every square foot of standing and seating space to see one of the greatest football games ever played…this tense, keyed up crowd even leaped the wire fences from the top of automobiles…” [8]
SMU scored the first 14 points of the game. TCU, led by All-American quarterback Sammy Baugh, tied the game at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Then, with seven minutes left in the game SMU, on a 4th and 4 on the Frogs' 37 yard-line, lined up to punt. Quarterback Robert Finley threw a 50-yard pass to running back Bobby Wilson who made what is described as a “jumping, twisting catch that swept him over the line for the touchdown.”[8] TCU would lose the game 14-20, but would be invited to play the LSU Tigers in the 1936 Sugar Bowl, where the Frogs would be victorious 3-2 at messy and muddy Tulane Stadium. Even with the loss to SMU, who later lost to Stanford in the 1936 Rose Bowl, TCU claims 1935 as a national championship year. Dan Jenkins states that one of the first statistical national polls was created by Frank G. Dickinson in 1924. By 1935 there were several other polls, and “…only one of them was big and caught on big and rivaled Dickinson. This was the Paul O. Williamson System out of New Orleans. It quickly gained nation-wide respect and a large syndicated circulation.” [9] The Williamson System awarded TCU a shared championship with LSU in 1935, the year before the first sportswriter poll by the Associated Press. The Dickinson poll awarded SMU the national title, and several smaller polls designated the University of Minnesota and Princeton University as their champions [10] TCU would go undefeated in 1938 under the tutelage of coach Dutch Meyer and behind TCU’s only Heisman Trophy winner — quarterback Davey O'Brien. That year the Frogs' closest game came against the University of Arkansas where they beat the Razorbacks 20-14 in Fort Worth. They were invited to the 1939 Sugar Bowl and beat the Carnegie Tech Tartans from Pittsburgh by a score of 15-7 in front of more than 50,000 spectators.[11]
Dutch Meyer coached TCU from 1934 to 1952. His record of 109-79-13 is the highest amount of victories at TCU. He also is responsible for three SWC championships. Meyer coached and won the first Cotton Bowl game in 1937.
When Dutch Meyer retired, his backfield assistant, Abe Martin, became head coach at TCU. Of his three SWC titles during his tenure, his most notable came in 1958. The Frogs only losses came at Iowa by a score of 0-17 and at #18 SMU 13-20.[12] The 1958 season ended in a scoreless tie against the Air Force Falcons in the 1959 Cotton Bowl. Martin-led TCU teams amased a 1-3-1 record in bowl games. The lone win came in the 1957 Cotton Bowl against a Jim Brown-led Syracuse team in front of 68,000 spectators.[13]
A blocked extra-point attempt was the difference in the game and allowed the Horned Frogs to win 28-27.
[edit] Small victories and probation
After TCU won the 1959 SWC championship, the Horned Frogs wouldn't earn another share of the conference title until 1994. During this time, TCU played the role of the underdog. In 1961, Bill Van Fleet of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram called the Horned Frogs' 6-0 win at then-No. 1 Texas, "the season's greatest upset of the year."[14] In 1965, TCU traveled to El Paso to play in the Sun Bowl against UTEP; the Frogs they lost 13-12. The state of football at TCU got so bad that from 1974 to 1983 the Frogs never won more than two games in a season. TCU would have a successful year in 1984 in sports under coach Jim Wacker. That year TCU leaned on All-American running back Kenneth Davis. The Frogs would be invited to the Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston for their first bowl invitation in 19 years to play the West Virginia Mountaineers. The Frogs would lose to the Mountaineers 31-14. TCU wouldn't attend another bowl game until the 1994 Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana. Again, they would lose that game 20-10 to the Virginia Cavaliers.
In 1986, the NCAA placed TCU on three year probation.[15] They found that 6 boosters provided football recruits and football players with cash and other forms of payment. The final penalty of the NCAA was to ban TCU from post-season play for one season, a forfeiture of TV revenue for the 1983 and 1984 seasons, only 10 scholarships for the 1987-88 academic year and only 15 scholarships for the 1988-1989 season. The NCAA said they would have given TCU a harsher penalty of: a three-year ban from postseason play, a three-year television appearance ban and no new scholarships for two years.[15] In the NCAA’s public release they imposed a reduced penalty because TCU self-reported the violations, suspended the players in question, full cooperation with the enforcement committee and a lack of previous infractions.[15]
[edit] The renaissance
The breakup of the Southwest Conference (SWC) sent TCU to the Western Athletic Conference (WAC), along with Rice and SMU. Houston joined the newly formed Conference USA. TCU's first two years in the WAC were not good years. Coach Pat Sullivan went 4-7 (3-5 WAC) in 1996 and then only defeated SMU in the last game of the season for a 1-10 record in 1997.
The revival of TCU football began under the watch of Dennis Franchione when TCU defeated the Trojans of USC in the 1998 Sun Bowl. In the three years Coach Franchione was at TCU his bowl record was 2-0 and accumulated two WAC Championships. Franchione coached the entire 2000 regular season, but left for the head coaching position at the University of Alabama before the 2000 Mobile Alabama Bowl. In 2001 TCU left the WAC for Conference USA (C-USA). TCU would only stay in C-USA for four years before accepting an invitation to join their current conference, the Mountain West Conference (MWC). The current head coach, Gary Patterson, has won two conference championships. In 2002, TCU won a C-USA title, and in 2005, TCU won the MWC title their first year in the league. Coach Patterson has had a winning season every year but 2004 when the Frogs went 5-6. TCU has gone to a bowl game every year but one since that 1998 Sun Bowl. In the 2006 Poinsettia Bowl TCU defeated the Northern Illinois Huskies 37-7. In their latest bowl victory the Horned Frogs defeated the Houston Cougars by a score of 20-13 in the 2007 Texas Bowl.
[edit] Conference affiliations
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[edit] Awards
[edit] Team Awards
[edit] National Championships
TCU recognizes two national championships one from 1935 and the other awarded in 1938. In 1935, TCU lost in their last game of the year to SMU who then lost to Stanford in the Rose Bowl. That same year TCU defeated LSU in the Sugar Bowl. Since the wire services didn't award national championships until 1936, TCU recognizes a statistical poll created by Paul O. Williamson who awarded his national title to LSU and TCU for the 1935 season. The 1938 team was undefeated and was the #1 team according to the Associated Press poll.
National Championships
[edit] Conference ChampionshipsTCU has won a combined 14 conference championships in 5 different conferences
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