TCU keeps walking a right rope as it attempts to make the College Football Playoffs.
The Big 12 Horned Frogs are 11-0 after a 29-28 victory over Baylor in Waco. But it took nine points in the final 2:07 and a last second field goal for Sonny Dykes’ team to stay unbeaten.
TCU trailed 28-20 with just a few minutes remaining when it went on a 11 play, 90 yard drive and scored to cut into the lead when Emari Demercado pounded into the endzone from three yards out. But TCU missed a two point conversion with two minutes to play. But TCU saved three timeouts, which helped with Baylor ran the ball three times and burned just 33 seconds off the clock. TCU got the ball back on its own 31 yard line with 1:34 left and Max Duggin led the Frogs to the Baylor 23 with no timeouts remaining. After Demercado’s third down run, the field goal unit scrambled onto the field with time remaining and Griffin Kell, who missed an extra point earlier, kicked a 40-yard, game winning field goal as time expired.
“It looked like chaos, but we practice it every Thursday,” Dykes said. “We practice it. It looks more frantic than it is.”
“We practice that all the time,” Duggin said. “It’s like brushing your teeth.”
TCU, which plays Iowa State in the regular season final, is just two wins away from becoming the first Big 12 team other than Oklahoma to reach the CFP semi-finals.
Going unbeaten in college football is hard. Just ask Michigan, which also needed a last second field goal to rally past Illinois, 19-17, at the Big House. The unbeaten Wolverines play Ohio State for the Big Ten East title next Saturday in Columbus.
But TCU, which has already clinched a spot in the Big 12 title game, could be a team of destiny. The Frogs last month overcame two double digit deficits i the second half against Oklahoma State and Kansas State.
“We don’t care what people say outside our locker room,” Duggin said. “We know we’re a competitive group, tough and gritty. We love to practice and love to play and we’re just trying to win the next game.”
