Just as the TCU Horned Frog football team has not “backed down” this season against any opponent, the Horned Frog faithful have not backed down from their BCS bowl-busting hopes. But at this point, after the undefeated season has been completed, any old BCS bowl game seems like a birthright to Fort Worth’s purple army.
Outside of Texas, TCU’s largest student home-base comes from California. With that in mind, Frog fans now want nothing less than a party in Pasadena at TCU’s summer estate with San Diego Charger and today’s most famous former Frog, LaDaninian Tomlinson, walking over from his backyard.
Of course, the one team standing in the Frogs’ path to ringing in the new year in Cali is big brother Texas. If TCU did not already have a chip on its shoulder against the Longhorns after their come-from-behind victory two years ago in Austin, they do now.
It is fitting that Nike added red to the Frogs’ uniform colors on their new Pro Combat helmets worn in the Nov. 14 game against Utah, because all of the Frog nation will be going Big Red this Saturday, cheering for Nebraska to upset Texas just down the road in Jerry World.
But when the blood finally gets done shooting out of the Horned Frogs’ eyes at Texas’ other state animal, it is easy to see how amazing this season has been in the Amon Carter Stadium, or “Hell’s Half Acre” as it has been nicknamed this season.
And it is fitting for the Frogs’ stadium to be tied into the historical tradition of Fort Worth this year. Fort Worth, a town full of Longhorns, Aggies and Red Raiders, not to mention America’s team only a few miles away, rallied around its home team by declaring “Go Purple” days for the past two TCU home games, lighting the skyline purple and even dying the Trinity River, which runs through the heart of the city, TCU purple.
Now most people in Fort Worth and anyone with an ounce of state pride would love to see the Longhorns take on the Horned Frogs in the national championship game, because in this state, being the best in Texas is just short of winning it all. But with Florida and Alabama finishing their regular season unscathed, that surely cannot happen.
Most fans won’t care which BCS location the team gets, assuming Texas wins. More important than the actual bowl is a matchup that, with a Frog win, would get the national spotlight shining brightest on the Frogs at the end of the bowl season.
With that said, the last two teams the Frogs want to face are Cincinnati and Boise State, but especially the Broncos. A rematch of last year’s Poinsettia Bowl would, in the Frogs’ mind and the national mind, be a game of the “others” and would really just kill the flair of being in a BCS bowl.
Frog head coach Gary Patterson said Saturday the reason he has stayed at TCU is because he believes a National Championship can be brought to Fort Worth. So, sorry, Austin, but this just might be Fort Worth’s year to represent the Lone Star State as the best in the land, for all the non-orange eyes of Texas are now upon the Frog princes from “Hell’s Half Acre”.
Sports editor Travis L. Brown is a senior news-editorial journalism major from Dallas.
