ARLINGTON, Texas — TCU head coach Sonny Dykes had the hottest, meanest, fastest, nastiest running quarterback in all of college football, and rather than use him to gain a few inches he had Max Duggan hand the ball off.
Twice.
As such, No. 3 TCU lost to the No. 10 Kansas State Wildcats, 31-28 in overtime in the Big 12 championship game on Saturday at AT&T Stadium.
The result left Duggan in tears, and every single TCU player, fan, coach, alum and administrator with their hearts deep in their stomachs.
Regardless of the outcome, the way the game played out legitimized both Duggan’s Heisman-case, and TCU’s push for the playoffs.
TCU must wait to learn both.
For the seventh time this season against a Big 12 opponent, TCU played a game that was arresting entertainment.
For the first time they lost.
The loss is on a head coach who may soon be named the College Football Coach of the Year, because he took the ball out of the hands of his Heisman Trophy caliber player and gave it to someone else.
On the opening possession of overtime, TCU had the ball inside the 1-yard line after a Duggan run set up a third-and-goal from about six inches.
Dykes called a timeout to try to get the Big 12 to review the spot; it looked as if the ball was over the line. Replays showed that Duggan’s elbow hit the ground just inches before he reached across the line to score a touchdown.
It was close.
On third down, Duggan handed the ball off to running back Kendre Miller, who gained nothing.
Replays showed Miller might have actually reached the ball over the goal line for the touchdown. Dykes said he didn’t know if the play was reviewed, but that his staff in the booth said it was a score.
Points didn’t go on the board, so it was not a score.
The Big 12 issued a statement after the game and said that play was reviewed; it said the ball was kicked out of Miller’s hands short of the line, and recovered short of the goal line.
Rather than play for the lead and settle for a short field goal, Dykes went for the killer touchdown.
Rather than trust Duggan, whose legs carried TCU back into the game with his running in the fourth quarter and overtime, to gain the six inches, he had his QB hand the ball off again.
Miller’s fourth-down run into the middle of the mass of humanity was again stopped for zero inches. No replay was needed.
It wasn’t close.
“We felt like Kendre has done it for us all year,” Dykes said on the play call. “If we had to do it over again we’d do it different.”
This is example number 834,234,301 of a head coach going with cute and clever when boring works.
Give the ball to the bull QB and let him plow between the big behinds of your center and guard. The percentages are in your favor.
Before those final two snaps, TCU had regained all of the momentum. Mostly because of its quarterback.
TCU trailed Kansas State 28-17 with 11:27 remaining in the game, and went on an 11-0 run to tie it, thanks largely to Duggan’s feet rather than his arm.
On the game-tying drive, Duggan ran for nearly the length of the field by himself. In that drive, Duggan had runs of 15 yards, 13 yards, 19 yards and 40 yards; his final run, from 8 yards, was the touchdown before the two-point conversion.
His two-point conversion pass was caught by tight end Jared Wiley with 1:51 remaining in the game.
Duggan did not have his best game, and he threw a killer interception in the end zone in the second half that looked to be a case of a miscommunication; he also showed everything that made him a viable candidate to win the Heisman Trophy.
He ran the ball 15 times for 110 yards, and when his team needed one more play, his head coach opted for someone else.
After the game, Duggan fought back a lot of tears talking about all of it.
“To be so close to bringing this school a championship, that’s where it hits the most,” Duggan said. “You’ve been so down, and so low, before to get so close that’s where this is coming from.”
There are no less than a dozen of other plays that TCU and its fans will bemoan, but this is what happens when a good team plays another good team.
It’s usually decided by inches. It’s usually decided by a few plays that stand out above the others.
Whether it was Kansas, Kansas State (the first time), Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Texas, Baylor, or Kansas State again, if you play enough close games eventually you’re going to lose one.
TCU now must wait.
The College Football Playoff selection committee will announce the playoff teams on Sunday morning at 11:15 on ESPN.
TCU should be one of the four.
“Go back to 2014 and I know TCU has been through this,” Dykes said of the first year of the college football playoff where TCU narrowly missed an invite. “I really do believe it was a different time in college football.
“The Big 12 is in a different place now than it was then. I think (the committee) is going to see it different. At the same time, you just don’t know. I’m concerned, obviously. But I have faith in the committee, and I know we deserve to be in.”
He’s right.
TCU should be in the 2022 College Football Playoffs.
Max Duggan should win the 2022 Heisman Trophy Award.
And Sonny Dykes, who should be the 2022 College Football Coach of the Year, should have trusted Max Duggan to score from six inches.
