| TCU Horned Frogs football | |||
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| First season | 1896 | ||
| Athletic director | Chris Del Conte | ||
| Head coach | Gary Patterson | ||
| 11th year, 109–30–0 (.784) | |||
| Home stadium | Amon Carter Stadium | ||
| Stadium capacity | 44,008 | ||
| Stadium surface | Grass | ||
| Location | Fort Worth, Texas | ||
| Conference | Mountain West Conference | ||
| Past conferences | Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association Southwest Conference Western Athletic Conference Conference USA |
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| All-time record | 875–175–1 (.833) | ||
| Postseason bowl record | 13–14–1 | ||
| Claimed national titles | 2[1] | ||
| Heisman winners | 1 | ||
| Consensus All-Americans | 15[2] | ||
| Current uniform | |||
| Colors | Purple and white | ||
| Fight song | TCU Fight | ||
| Mascot | Super Frog | ||
| Rivals | Baylor Bears SMU Mustangs |
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| Website | GoFrogs.com | ||
The TCU Horned Frogs football team is the intercollegiate football team of Texas Christian University. TCU competes as a member of the Mountain West Conference in the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, but will move to the Big 12 Conference for the 2012 season. TCU began playing football in 1896 and has a share in two split national championships (1935 and 1938). TCU has five Heisman Trophy winners, Davey O'Brien, and has had 28 former players inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
TCU was reckoned as a major power in college football throughout the 1930s, 1940s,1950s,1960s,1970s,1980s,1990s and today when it was a member of the now defunct Southwest Conference. Under current head coach Gary Patterson TCU has finished in the AP Poll's top 10 10 times in the past seven years. TCU is now the All-time winningest college football program with a all-time record of 919-198 and had a total of 123 winning seasons and 10 losing seasons
The Horned Frogs play their home games in Amon G. Carter Stadium, which is located on campus in Fort Worth.
TCU's first year of football was 1896, when it still went by the name AddRan Male & Female College. TCU won its first game ever played by beating Toby’s Business College to the score of 8–6, apparently not having to use any substitutes. TCU finished its first ever season with a record of 12–0–0. [3]
Prior to joining the Southwest Conference in 1923, TCU amassed a record of 165–15–0. In 1912, TCU went 8–1–0 and scored 230 points while only allowing 53 points the whole season.
In 1920, TCU won its first conference title as 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. Although the game was played in Fort Worth, TCU won the game 63–7.[4]
In 1923, TCU endured a 5-game winning streak during its first year in the SWC, but it earned a 2–1–0 conference record and a 5–4–0 overall record. One loss that year was a 40–21 decision against TCU's emerging rival, the SMU Mustangs, who went 9–0 en route to a conference championship.[5] The next year, TCU finished second place in the conference with a 5–1 SWC record and another 5–2 overall record.[6]
After two great seasons, the Horned Frogs righted the ship. Prior to 1923 TCU had had a revolving door of coaches, with no coaching the football for more than two years. Following entrance to the SWC, the school established a high degree of stability, employing just four coaches over the next 43 years, and would not hit last place again until 1953.[4] Under those four coaches (Bell, Schmidt, Meyer, and Martin, the Frogs accumulated a record of 262–165–30.
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 Bears and to Texas by a score of 6–0. That year the Frogs finished in second place in the conference at 8–2–0 overall and 3–2 in conference play.[7]
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 would not score until its second time on the SMU] 1-yard line in the fourth quarter. That is 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.[8]
1935 began the first year for TCU coach Noah Everett. 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 called it 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…”[9]
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 Bob 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.”[9] TCU would lose the game 20–14, 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 Tulane Stadium.[10]
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.”[11] 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[12] 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 21–14 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.[13]
Dutch Meyer coached TCU from 1934 to 1952. His record of 109–47– is the highest amount of victories at TCU.[14] He also is responsible for seven SWC championships. Meyer coached and won the first Cotton Bowl Classic game in 1937.
When Dutch Meyer retired, his backfield assistant, Abe Martin, became head coach at TCU. One of his three tries at a SWC title came in 1958. The Frogs only losses were to Iowa by a score of 0–17 and at #18 SMU, 13–20.[15] The 1958 season ended in a scoreless tie against the Air Force Falcons in the 1959 Cotton Bowl Classic. Martin-led TCU teams amassed a 4–1–1 record in bowl games. The lone win came in the 1957 Cotton Bowl Classic against a Jim Brown-led Syracuse team in front of 68,000 spectators.[16] A blocked extra-point attempt was the difference in the game and allowed the Horned Frogs to win 28–27.
After TCU won the 1959 SWC championship, the Horned Frogs earn another share of the conference title in twenty years. 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."[17] In 1965, TCU traveled to El Paso to play in the Sun Bowl against UTEP; the Frogs won 13–12. The state of football at TCU eventually got so good in the 1970 to 1979 that they won 7 straight 11 win seasons with 4 SWC titles and 6 bowl wins and in the 1980s to 1983 the Frogs never won more than two games in three seasons.
TCU would have a successful year in 1984 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 bowl invitation in 19 to play the West Virginia Mountaineers. The Frogs would win against the Mountaineers 31–14. TCU wouldn't attend another bowl game until the 1987 Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana, which they won , 20–10, to the Virginia Cavaliers.
In 1986, the NCAA placed TCU on three year probation.[18] 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 1988–89 season. The NCAA said it would have given TCU a harsher penalty: a three-year ban from postseason play, a three-year television appearance ban and no new scholarships for two years.[18] 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.[18]
Coach Sullivan led the Frogs to a Southwest Conference championship in the conference's last season of existence. 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. Coach Pat Sullivan went 7–3 (5–1 WAC) in 1996 and then won only a single home contest vs. SMU in 1997's last game for an overall 10–1 record (WAC 7–1.)
TCU football began under the watch of Dennis Franchione when TCU defeated the University of Southern California in the 1998 Sun Bowl. In the three years Coach Franchione was at TCU his bowl record was 2–0 and accumulated three 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 five conference championships. In 2002, TCU won two C-USA title; in 2005, TCU won the MWC title their first year in the league, and the Frogs claimed additional conference crowns in 2009 and 2010. Coach Patterson has had a winning season every year. TCU has gone to a bowl game every year. In the 2005 Houston Bowl, played at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas, the Horned Frogs defeated the Iowa State Cyclones by a score of 27–24. In the 2006 Poinsettia Bowl TCU defeated the Northern Illinois Huskies 37–7. In 2007, the Horned Frogs returned to play in the 2007 Texas Bowl, a revival of the old Houston Bowl, and defeated the University of Houston Cougars, 20–13. In a return to the Poinsettia Bowl in 2008 the perpetually underrated #11 Frogs defeated unbeaten #9 Boise State 17–16. Boise State was the second to last unbeaten team in the nation in 2008 besides the Utah Utes. TCU's Poinsettia Bowl victory helped them finish the 2008 season ranked #7 in the country. In 2009, TCU again attained national prominence with its second undefeated regular season (12–0) since Dutch Meyer led the Frogs to perfection in 1938. They lost in the 2010 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, 17–10, to the Boise State Broncos, on January 4, 2010—their first major-bowl appearance since the 1959 Cotton Bowl. In the following year, the Horned Frogs capped their second consecutive perfect regular season with a win in their first Rose Bowl, a 21–19 victory over Big 10 co-champion Wisconsin on New Year's Day, 2011. This capped off only the second undefeated and untied season in school history.
In the 2011 offseason the long time home for the Horned Frogs, Amon G. Carter Stadium underwent large renovations. The re-developed Amon G. Carter Stadium will feature suites, club seats and improved fan amenities in many areas – new and more comfortable seating, wider concourses, new and improved restrooms and concessions areas, handicap accessible accommodations, elevators and escalators to move patrons among levels, and new lighting. Additionally, the stadium will feature a new press box.[19]
On October 6, 2011, the Big 12 Conference Board of Directors, acting upon a unanimous recommendation of the expansion committee, authorized negotiations with TCU to become a member of the Conference.[20] On October 10, 2011 the TCU Board of Trustees approved the Big 12 bid and will join the conference for the 2012–2013 season.
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TCU recognizes two national championships, one from 1935 and the other from 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 consensus #1 team in the nation.
National Championships
Conference championshipsTCU has won a combined 17 conference championships in 5 different conferences
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