FORT WORTH, Texas — For awhile it seemed like TCU wouldn’t be able to climb out of a 24-7 deficit, but with persistence on defense and creativity on offense the Horned Frogs battled back to push No. 8 Oklahoma State to overtime.
The teams went back and forth until the second overtime as Kendre Miller rumbled in from two yards to lift TCU to a 43-40 win.
For long stretches of the afternoon it appeared TCU would be lucky to keep it close, but the Horned Frogs kept making plays and capitalized on the inability of the Cowboys offense to put them away.
How TCU pulled off the dramatic comeback:
TCU’s defense stands tall
Oklahoma State blitzed the TCU defense early as Spencer Sanders led two easy touchdown drives that he finished off with his legs in the first quarter. The Horned Frogs allowed 153 yards in the first quarter on an average of 8.5 yards per play. It would appear the defense was in for a long game, but Joe Gillespie’s unit buckled down as time went by.
The Cowboys held to just 16 points the rest of regulation as they had 58 yards in the second quarter and 32 in the fourth. Bud Clark made an acrobatic interception of Sanders to give TCU life late in the fourth. The defense sacked Sanders twice and had five tackles for loss.
The defense was the reason the Horned Frogs had a chance late to win.
Duggan does enough
TCU's Max Duggan was playing as well as any quarterback in the country, but the Oklahoma State defense was able to keep him off rhythm all afternoon. When he wasn’t throwing to Quentin Johnston, Duggan had a difficult time finding success with his other receivers, but if it isn’t broke don’t fix it right?
Duggan threw a touchdown pass in the fourth quarter to Jared Wiley and in overtime to Johnston to will the Horned Frogs to a win. It wasn’t his best game of the season, far from it, but he made enough plays down the stretch and avoided costly mistakes even while the offense wasn’t clicking.
Offensive coordinator Garrett Riley showed some creative play calling that led to those two wide-open touchdown passes.
On Wiley’s touchdown, Emari Demercado took a direct snap from the center, handed it to Duggan who found a wide open Wiley for a 10-yard touchdown with less than two minutes remaining.
After throwing a strike to Johnston for a touchdown in the first overtime, Duggan helped set up the game-winning score with a 12-yard run.
Johnston officially unlocked
For much of the game, Johnston was the lone source of offense for TCU. At one point the receiver had 69 of TCU’s 129 total yards. Against a stiffer defense than Kansas’, Johnston had his second straight 100-yard game and had another catch that will likely be all over ESPN’s SportsCenter tonight.
Johnston leaped over a Cowboy defender and made a tough, twisting catch that went 48 yards. It helped set up the one-yard touchdown from Duggan that made it 14-7 at the end of the first quarter. Johnston came up with another clutch play on TCU’s game-tying drive. He caught a pass, stiff armed a defender and raced 30 yards to get TCU in Oklahoma State territory.
Johnston caught his second touchdown of the year in the first overtime period.
Cowboys out-execute in first half
TCU outgained Oklahoma State 235 to 211 in the first half. The Horned Frogs held Sanders to just 8-of-17 passing, but somehow TCU found itself down 24-13 at the break. It was pretty simple to understand why as the execution by the Cowboys was just better than TCU’s in the first 30 minutes.
Oklahoma State had one of the country’s best third-down defenses and held TCU to just 2 of 8 conversions. Meanwhile Sanders kept the chains moving 50% (4 of 8) of the time. It also didn’t help that TCU had a rare turnover from electric punt return Derius Davis. The Cowboys scored all four times they entered the redzone. The Horned Frogs only had two opportunities and scored on one while squandering the other.
TCU went for it on fourth down with a reverse to Davis that was snuffed out by the Cowboys with TCU down 24-7.
Mixed bag on special teams
The Horned Frogs have been pretty solid in the third phase of the game until they faced the Cowboys. Two special teams blunders proved to be the difference in the first half. The first one came after the Horned Frogs got a much needed three-and-out against the Cowboys offense. With a chance to tie it at 14, Davis muffed the punt and Oklahoma State recovered at the TCU 24.
The Cowboys settled for a field goal to move ahead 17-7. Then after TCU had to punt it appeared the Horned Frogs would be the beneficiaries of a muffed punt themselves, but the ball hit a Horned Frog player and TCU was flagged for kick catch interference. Oklahoma State got the ball at the TCU 47 and scored a few plays later as Sanders connected with John Paul Richardson with 10 minutes left before halftime to give the Cowboys a 24-7 lead.
