PASADENA, CA – It was the return of greatness for TCU football. Tears of joy were flowing during a celebration that could have lasted all night after the Horned Frogs won their first game ever played in the Rose Bowl.
If it wasn’t for the perception of TCU as a member of a non-qualifying BCS conference, the Horned Frogs might have had a shot at playing for a National Championship.
“If you want to understand the emotion behind why TCU has won ball games, why we’ve done the things we need to do, you need to know where we came from,” says TCU head coach Gary Patterson. “If you know where we came from, you understand why we play with a chip on our shoulder.”
No longer are they in the shadows of other big time college football programs. Instead, they’re the ones bucking the system and enjoying the national spotlight.
“I'm extremely impressed and it doesn't matter what conference they played in,” says ESPN broadcaster Brent Musburger. “To put together back to back undefeated regular seasons, and do it in the fashion that they have done it, from my standpoint, I've got a lot of respect for them.”
TCU is getting used to playing on the big stage. Back to back appearances in a BCS bowl game will do that. It's slowly changing the national perception of a small private University that has less than 10,000 students.
TCU to put it in a word, is now a hot school,” says Bob Schieffer, a TCU graduate and CBS News anchor. “It's a school that some people used to think of as some little bible college out in some place where nobody knew where it was. All of sudden, people know where TCU is and they know what it is. I mean, this has helped the recruiting even for the journalism school.”
“Let's not forget that, they were left behind by the Big 12 and now the Big 12 is being left behind by college football and there is TCU is at the top,” says ESPN’s Ivan Maisel. “It's got to make all those guys feel really good.”
“I think that they've arrived at a point where people are willing to take them seriously as a national contender,” says Dallas Morning News columnist Kevin Sherrington. “I don't think that's a joke anymore.”
“Most of America, college presidents, media and fans, still separate the college football landscape into automatic qualifying teams and leagues and non automatic qualifying, and TCU in that regard still comes from the wrong side of the tracks,” says Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Gil Lebreton.
That will change in 2012 when they join the Big East Conference. At 13-and-0, TCU recorded their first perfect season since the school won a national championship in 1938 but there won't be a championship this year.
“ I've always thought that a championship should be determined on the field of play where you go head to head to find out who is best and not go by the polls,” says College Hall of Fame coach Hayden Fry. “So many of those people that vote on those polls, have never had a jock strap on in their life.”
“I've never been a whiner, I've never been somebody that's been out there griping about how it is, and I'm not going to start now,” says Patterson.
But TCU did prove that they belong on the national stage.
No comments:
Post a Comment