A Horned Frog shoots blood out of its eye as a defense mechanism a Beaver hides in its dam when danger is near. Well, Beavers, it is time to hide in your dam.

The long-anticipated TCU football season opener against Oregon State will bring a rush of adrenaline to the Horned Frogs that without doubt will result in a win for TCU.

TCU opens its 2010 season with the highest preseason ranking in school history, while OSU opens the season ranked 24th in the AP poll.

Although the Horned Frogs and Beavers have never met together on the football field, they had a recent match-up on the baseball diamond. During the 2009 Fort Worth Regional in the NCAA tournament, TCU beat OSU 5-4, advancing to the super regional.

OSU football head coach Mike Riley’s teams have a history of starting slow. For the last three years OSU has lost two of the first four games, while Gary Patterson’s team has not lost a season opener since 2002.

Last year,the Beavers had their worst season record in the past three years at 8-5. The Horned Frogs had their best season record during the 2009 season at 12-1, the only loss coming in their first BCS bowl appearance.

Speaking of bowl games, despite the 17-10 Horned Frog loss against Boise State in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the Beavers had a harder time in the Las Vegas Bowl, losing to the Frogs’ fellow Mountain West Conference team Brigham Young University,44-20.

TCU beat BYU by a whopping 31 points, 38-7, in a conference match-up last season.

The Beavers are starting a new kitten (term for a newborn Beaver) during the season opener in sophomore quarterback Ryan Katz. Katz cannot be compared to the Frogs’ senior returning quarterback Andy Dalton. Competing with Dalton’s experience will be difficult for Katz. In the last 19 games Dalton had 34 touchdown passes and only 11 picks.

In addition to returning Dalton, TCU returns 16 starters and 54 lettermen from last season’s 12-1 team. Dalton said in an August press conference that the amount of returning seniors and starting players will help out the team tremendously.

“It is great to have all the guys back,” Dalton said. “You feel the chemistry with them…We’ve all really matured as each season has gone on, so we are really going to be on the same page.”

OSU returns 15 starters, who cannot make up for the lack of a returning quarterback.

Playing in a venue as large as Cowboys Stadium is not a daunting task for TCU, as the Frogs have played their past five bowl games at a former Super Bowl host stadium.

The Horned Frogs will not leave it to the Beavers and will capture their eighth season opening win Saturday at Cowboys Stadium.

Sports Editor Madison Pelletier is a junior broadcast journalism major from Keller.