For TCU, getting past Oklahoma isn’t about overcoming a bad spot.
And yeah, it was a bad spot.
For TCU, getting past Oklahoma and entering the realm of annual Big 12 contender is about gaining two major elements — a defense that becomes competitive with the Sooners’ elite offense and coach and a quarterback who can sustain, even grow stronger, in pressure-packed road environments.
It will look a lot like Saturday’s game — after the first quarter.
After the first quarter, TCU outscored No. 9-ranked Oklahoma. After the first quarter, TCU turned Oklahoma over twice. After the first quarter, quarterback Max Duggan broke off a 62-yard run, scored on an 11-yard run and figured out the defense.
After the first quarter, TCU had both elements.
Of course, everything before the first quarter counted, too. Eventually, it meant the difference in OU’s 28-24 victory. There’s no discounting 189 yards and two touchdowns in the opening 15 minutes and a third touchdown five plays into the second 15 minutes, resulting in a 21-0 lead before TCU even had four yards.
Think of that.
In front of 82,241 on a 39-degree night when the other team has a Heisman candidate and averaged 41 points in the last six meetings and was trying to impress a committee, what was going to happen this time?
“I don’t know that our kids knew they could play with Oklahoma in the first quarter,” Frogs coach Gary Patterson said in his postgame radio interview. “And I told them before the ballgame that that was going to happen if they didn’t decide they wanted to rear up and get going. You just can’t spot somebody 21 points.”
No, but you can do the only thing that gives you a chance — prevent many more. After the first quarter, Patterson got a handle on Lincoln Riley’s plan and turned it into a contest of run strength versus run defense.
The Sooners finished with 366 yards on the ground, but they were tough yards. The chunk plays disappeared.
“We did some things out of a three-man rush, a three-man dime, that got more speed on the field, played different leverages, and it helped against them,” Patterson said. “We saw Baylor do it, and it was one of those things that we actually put in in two-a-days for this ballgame. Because really, Oklahoma, the last couple of years, has gotten after us.”
The Sooners’ previous four point totals against TCU were 52, 41, 38 and 52. That’s unsustainable for any team thinking of winning this conference.
“It was one of those things where we were going to have to change up,” Patterson said. “And, you know, it helped us slow them down.”
Duggan helped them keep up.
The freshman from Council Bluffs, Iowa, got his first taste of Norman, Okla., and dished everything he got right back.
The intensity of his 11-yard touchdown run could be felt in Fort Worth as it got the Frogs within 21-17 in the third quarter. His long run in the second quarter had broken the ice. He escaped sacks and fired deep.
If being down 21-0 to the team that has owned the conference he now plays in bothered him, who could tell? The spirited signal-caller stood up against the Sooners’ Jalen Hurts, whose two turnovers in the second half threatened to undo the work he did to get his team so far in front.
Duggan had his own missteps. He sent a ball too hot to tight end Artayvius Lynn in the red zone, costing a touchdown. He overthrew Jalen Reagor on a 9-route that would have been another touchdown. He threw behind Pro Wells on fourth-and-6 at the plus-40, giving the ball back with 1:41 left.
He didn’t get it back. At night’s end, he had only seven completions, if you can believe that.
But the Frogs knows what they have in the passer. And that is a player that can potentially allow them to match any player in the conference at his position. Next week against West Virginia, Duggan will get a chance to take his team to bowl eligibility as a freshman. If he does, he’ll also come out with a 4-5 record in his first spin through the Big 12.
Not bad for an out-of-state 18-year-old who wasn’t the front-runner for the job when he arrived on campus.
“Really, Max Duggan, he’s got to be the centerpiece of what we’re trying to get accomplished, as far as the way he fights and the way he competes and the way he does things,” Patterson said. “And everybody over there needs to start thinking and understanding how you need to turn the intensity up to be able to play at the level that he does.”
It’s the level that will be required to overcome Oklahoma. The quarterback has it. The defense found it.
It’s no longer the first quarter.