Horned Frogs Crack Top 25

The TCU Campus hasn't been the same this week. Walk ten feet, in any direction, and you’ll find a student ready to talk about their football team.

“People are walking around with OU shirts X-ed out,” says Felicia Wright, a TCU student. “We won this and that, everyone is all excited about it.”

The dormitories are decked out as well. “It’s all over everyone's doors, and on the internet, and their profiles, on instant messenger,” says Ashley Hamaker. “I think its just kind of shock.”

Outside on the dorms, students posted the final score, 17-to-10, where it has remained all week. Talk about a change in expectations.

“We're going to win the national championship,” says an optimistic Leo Su. “Next year, we're going to ranked number one.”

Great thought, but that may be a little far fetched. Still, TCU football is on the rise. After all, they cracked the Associated Press Top 20 at number-22.

“I just told them there's going to be fifty percent of the people out there that believe that this is just a one time thing,” says TCU Head Coach Gary Patterson in a raspy voice. “The only way to prove that any different is to come back and win next week.”

That means beating cross town rival SMU in University Park this weekend, a team the Horned Frogs have beaten the last six meetings.

Herbert Taylor is part of TCU’s big offensive line. “The way you prove it was not a fluke, is go into the season and you win out every ball game, kind of proving to the nation that you are at team deserving.”

David Roach is the starting weakside linebacker. He says “We're out to prove that we're going to be the best in our conference, and we're hopefully, going to be undefeated by the end of the season and go to a bowl game.”

The schools string of six straight bowl appearances ended last year.

Ranorris Ray, who is a Lombardi Award candidate, says, “I think the only part that should carry over is confidence from winning a big game like this. We shouldn't because we've got ten more straight ball games. We can't overlook SMU.

TCU certainly turned some heads with their season opening win against Oklahoma last weekend, but now comes the tough part, living up to the standard set by such an incredible win.
The winner gets to keep the Iron Skillet, a tradition started during the post-World War II college football boom. The tradition actually disappeared for a while when the Skillet was lost, but fear not, it was found and the tradition was reborn in 1993.

The game will begin at 8:30 pm on Saturday night at Gerald Ford Stadium in University Park and nationally televised on CSTV.