Horned Frogs make statement in upset win
STILLWATER, Okla. — TCU felt ignored heading into its matchup with high-powered Oklahoma State.
The Horned Frogs can’t be overlooked anymore. Darius Anderson ran for a career-high 160 yards and three touchdowns, and No. 16 TCU upset the sixth-ranked Cowboys 44-31 on Saturday to stamp the Horned Frogs as a Big 12 contender.
“People can say what they want to say, but we know what we are, and we try to be the best team every day,” TCU defensive end Ben Banogu said. “But you don’t just get there after one big win, it’s throughout the season. If we can keep the ball rolling and keeping doing what we do, then we’ll find ourselves in that conversation.” Playing their game
Kenny Hill passed for 228 yards for the Horned Frogs (4-0, 1-0 Big 12), who ran 52 times for 238 yards.
“We want to be relevant, you want to win enough to get noticed,” TCU coach Gary Patterson said. “It was also an advantage that no one was giving us a chance. We play better that way.”
TCU gave Oklahoma State’s Mason Rudolph time to throw, but he often couldn’t find enough open receivers and settled for short passes or threw the ball away. He completed 22 of 41 passes for 398 yards and two touchdowns, but he threw two interceptions.
James Washington caught six passes for 153 yards and a touchdown and Marcell Ateman caught six passes for 100 yards for the Cowboys (31, 0-1).
TCU focused on taking away the deep ball. The Horned Frogs got burned once, on an 86yard touchdown catch by Washington. But most of the rest of their passes were underneath, and many required precise throws by Rudolph.
“They feed off of it,” Patterson said. “Their energy, they feed off the long ball and the quick play and all of it, so for us, we wanted to make you pay, and that’s really what the group did. We made them drive it. We made them drive it and then anything can happen.” Closing out the Cowboys
The Horned Frogs led 37-17 in the fourth quarter before the Cowboys rallied and cut the deficit to six points. Anderson’s 42yard touchdown run with 2:37 remaining closed the deal.
Oklahoma State committed four turnovers to one for TCU.
“We didn’t play very smart and very disciplined, and really, we got outcoached,” Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said. “I thought that they had better plans, and their players executed their plans better than we did.”