Whoda thought it? TCU is in the national title game

GLENDALE, Ariz. – The purple confetti had completed its orbit of State Farm Stadium. TCU coach Sonny Dykes, unbridled joy across his face, had held aloft the gold football that sits atop the Fiesta Bowl trophy. Someone began handing out cigars to the No. 3 Horned Frogs, who had just stunned No. 2 Michigan and pretty much the rest of the college football universe. TCU, a private school that Michigan could fit in its backpack, beat the Wolverines 51-45 and advanced to the College Football Playoff Championship Game against Georgia on January 9.

As Dykes walked toward the tunnel that led to the Horned Frogs’ locker room, he said quietly, “Whoda thought, man? Whoda thought?”

There are so many whoda thoughts to contemplate after the Frogs (13-1) upended the undefeated Wolverines, a team that imposed its physical running game and stifling defense on 13 opponents this season and came to the desert expecting to do the same to TCU. That’s how Jim Harbaugh thinks. Every other sentence Harbaugh says something about the Wolverines imposing their will.

Whoda thought that a team that didn’t allow more than 27 points this season would give up 51?

Whoda thought that a defense that didn’t allow more than 148 rushing yards this season would give up 263 on the ground to a TCU team that lost starting running back Kendre Miller to injury for the second half? Senior Emari Demercado replaced Miller and rushed for 150 yards and a touchdown.

Whoda thought that Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy, who threw only three interceptions all season, would deal a pair of pick-sixes?

Whoda thought TCU and its Air Raid offense and 3-3-5 defense would lure Michigan into a big-play shootout? The Horned Frogs and Wolverines combined to score 59 points in a span of 11 minutes, 30 seconds of second-half game time. Of the nine scores, eight came on drives that needed no more than four plays. The fight sequence in “Rocky” came to mind, but as entertaining as it was, that was Hollywood hogwash. This was a CFP semifinal, and very real.

TCU, picked seventh in the Big 12 Conference, treated Michigan as if it were another team in the Big 12. You don’t need me to repeat the chorus. Let TCU offensive coordinator Garrett Riley have the mic.

“Who would have thought we’d be here right now at the beginning of the season?” Riley said. “We felt like we had some talent to do something special. It’s obviously surreal to be in this moment right now, confetti coming down and making it real.”

TCU has an enrollment of 10,500; Michigan, nearly 45,000. The Wolverines are one of two anchors of the mighty Big Ten. For nearly two decades after the death of the Southwest Conference, TCU lived the life of the housing insecure, moving through three conferences before finally gaining entry into the Big 12 a decade ago.

“It’s always been a fight for credibility,” Dykes, the first-year coach who grew up in the SWC, the son of Texas Tech coaching legend Spike Dykes, said this week. Here’s one definition of credibility: TCU becomes the first private institution to reach the CFP Championship Game.

But don’t mistake wonder for self-effacement. “We were kind of licking our chops for this matchup,” said Riley, who now has beaten older brother Lincoln to the CFP final. “I think we were a tough matchup for them. We were so different from anything they see. We got a great team that can win in a lot of different ways. We’re fast. We’re violent. We’re physical. We’re not a finesse team by any stretch of the imagination on both sides of the ball.”

On the first play of the game, Michigan back Donovan Edwards burst through the line of scrimmage and raced 54 yards to TCU’s 21. Three things to note: One, Edwards got caught from behind by Frogs free safety Bud Clark. Two, for the rest of the game, Michigan ran the ball 39 times and gained only 132 yards. “Our ability to stop the run, I think, was the difference in the ballgame,” Dykes said.

Three, on this opening drive, the Wolverines got to fourth-and-goal at the Frogs’ 2 and rather than, say, impose their will, Michigan tried the Philly Special. Tight end Colston Loveland, trying to throw to McCarthy, got sacked by TCU end Dylan Horton, who finished with three sacks and also forced McCarthy into an intentional grounding penalty.

Michigan’s second failure in the red zone, early in the second quarter, didn’t come from getting cute. Linebacker-turned-running back Kalel Mullings lost a fumble at the goal line on the first play after the officials used replay to take a Wolverines touchdown off the board.

By that time, Michigan trailed 14-3, McCarthy having thrown the first of his pick-sixes to Clark, who broke perfectly on an out route and returned it 41 yards for a touchdown. By halftime, TCU led 21-6. To recap, the Wolverines had run six plays in the red zone, and failed to score on one possession from the 2 and another from the 1.

The Frogs, meanwhile, had put together touchdown drives of 12 and 10 plays.

“I think it was big for us early in the game to have a couple of drives that were long in terms of plays,” Riley said. “I thought, ‘We can’t sit here and rely on the huge play.’ I thought they would come, and they did. We had to show that we can methodically move it down against a defense like that, and keep our defense off the field. They scored the pick-six early. They were on the field a little bit.”

So naturally, in the second half, all offensive hell broke loose.

Among the most glaring of the Wolverines’ offense’s ugly stats of the first half – and there were plenty – was wide receiver Ronnie Bell: three targets, no catches. Once that changed, the game changed. On Michigan’s first possession of the third quarter, Bell got behind Clark for a 43-yard catch to set up Moody’s third field goal.

After Mike Sainristil intercepted Max Duggan near midfield, McCarthy threw a 34-yard flea-flicker touchdown pass to Bell. He would finish with six catches for 135 yards and a touchdown. That score cut TCU’s lead to 21-16, and opened the scoring jubilee mentioned above.

TCU scored on a six-play drive – a 46-yard pass from Duggan to Quentin Johnston, and five consecutive runs by Demercado, then added a second pick-six, linebacker Dee Winters returning it 29 yards to put the Frogs back up by 18, 34-16.

As long as we’re watching “Rocky,” here’s the blow-by-blow:

Michigan: three plays, 69 yards, touchdown, missed two-point conversion, 58-second drive. Score: 34-22

TCU: three plays, 78 yards, touchdown, 52-second drive. Score: 41-22.

Michigan: three plays, 75 yards, touchdown, two-point conversion, 46-second drive. Score: 41-30.

Michigan: after recovering a Demercardo fumble, two plays, 27 yards, 27-second drive, two-point conversion. Score: 41-38.

TCU: three plays, 79 yards, 59-second drive. Score: 48-38.

TCU: four plays, 1 yard, drive of 2:07. Score: 51-38.

“Continuing to fight, continuing to believe, not worrying about what that last play was, whether it was a successful play, whether it was a bad play – just playing the next play,” Duggan said. “I think that’s kind of our mindset.”

Phew. The last Frogs touchdown came on a pick play in which Johnston caught a short pass, eluded DJ Turner’s diving tackle and looked upfield to see nothing but grass. He took it 76 yards for a score. This is important, not only for the points but because it would be the last burst of offense from the Frogs. On their final four possessions, they gained a total of 20 yards. They got the last field goal thanks to Derius Davis, who returned a punt 31 yards to Michigan’s 16.

“I’ll add to that,” Dykes said. “I think it was crazy. It really was. … You’ve got to give our players a ton of credit. They got on the sideline and got settled down.”

Michigan, down six, got its last chance to win, starting a drive on its 25 with 52 seconds left and no timeouts. On fourth-and-10, McCarthy didn’t appear to expect the pistol snap. It bounced off his leg.

“I thought they played a great game,” Harbaugh said. “Very opportunistic team. Very resilient team. Really great team. Played a great football game, no doubt. There’s a winner. There’s a non-winner. But the winner was football.”

Michigan, the, um, non-winners, played valiantly to the end. But the Wolverines made too many mistakes. They are going home. TCU is going to Los Angeles. Whoda thought?