Message sent: No. 4 Frogs spank No. 16 Utah in front of record-setting crowd, BCS bowl officials

TCU redshirt freshman running back Ed Wesley led all rushers with 138 yards on 12 carries, including a 14-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter, to help undefeated No. 4 TCU wallop the No. 16 Utah Utes, 55-28, before a record Amon Carter Stadium crowd of 50,307. KillerFrogs.com photo by David May.

By Tony Eierdam / KillerFrogs.com Staff Writer

In front of the largest, loudest and most enthusiastic Amon Carter Stadium crowd of all time, the No. 4 TCU Horned Frogs left no doubt in the minds of anyone in attendance or watching on national TV if they are worthy of playing in a BCS bowl or, yes, the national championship game.

Sparked by a deafening crowd and an early three-touchdown spurt, the Horned Frogs inched closer to its second Mountain West Conference title and a coveted BCS bowl game while still remaining in the national championship hunt with a more-than-impressive 55-28 whipping of No. 16 and defending MWC champion Utah.

The win raises the Horned Frogs' mark to 10-0 and 6-0 in MWC action. The Frogs have defeated their two main MWC rivals – Utah and BYU – by a combined score of 93-35.

TCU continues MWC play at Wyoming on Saturday before returning home on Nov. 28 for the finale against New Mexico. Wins – in games the Frogs will be heavily favored in – would produce TCU's first undefeated season since the undisputed national championship season of 1938.

Bowl representatives from the Orange and Fiesta bowls were on hand to witness the beating.

"If the nation didn't think this was enough style points," TCU head coach Gary Patterson said, "I don't know what is."

New TCU athletic director Chris Del Conte feels "beyond a shadow of a doubt" after seeing ACS filled to sardine-like capacity that the Frog faithful would come in droves to attend a BCS bowl game.

"If there was any doubt that we wouldn't show up," he said, "that was all squelched tonight. We showed up. Everything."

Perhaps what Del Conte meant by "everything" was the enthusiastic crowd – which showed up in record numbers for ESPN's live GameDay show (estimates were in the thousands, and host Kirk Herbstreit said during the live broadcast that it was the largest gathering of any GameDay audience) – dominating play on the field and a larger gathering that could have been expected.

"This was a special night for TCU," Feista Bowl chairman Alan Young said. "We (now) know the excitement that TCU (team and fans) could bring to a BCS bowl game. We could see the support the fans have for the team."

Utah, which had defeated the Frogs three years in a row, never really had a chance.

The teams traded touchdowns early in the contest, with the Frogs scoring on a 41-yard sprint by Matthew Tucker, and Utah reaching the end zone on a 10-yard run.

Near the end of the opening period, the Frogs took the lead for good when quarterback Andy Dalton completed a pass to receiver Ryan Christian, who tightroped his way down the right sideline for a 10-yard score. Christian, who scored two touchdowns last week in the Frogs' win over San Diego State, led Frogs receivers with five receptions for 48 yards.

Dalton would go on to complete 17 of 29 passes for 207 yards. Kicker Ross Evans booted the second of his seven extra point to give the Frogs a 14-7 lead.

The second quarter spelled doomsday for the reeling Utes. In a span of just 2:29, TCU found the end zone three times, and the contest that many thought would to go down to the wire, instead became an embarrassing blowout.

The onslaught began when redshirt freshman Greg Burks blocked a Utah punt, which led to a three-yard run by the Hutto Houdini, Jeremy Kerley, for a 21-7 lead.

After the TCU defense stiffened (Utah gained just 284 total yards and a paltry 65 yards on the ground, much of which came in the fourth quarter) Kerley set up the next TCU touchdown with 39-yard punt return.

Antoine Hicks plowed over from a yard out to cap a three-play, 29-yard drive that extended the hosts' lead to 28-7.

The Frogs' defense delivered the back-breaking blow on the Utes' ensuing possession. Utah true freshman quarterback Jordan Wynn telegraphed a pass to the right sideline, where opportunistic linebacker Tank Carder jumped the route, intercepting the pass and dancing 15 yards down the left sideline and into the end zone to put the record crowd of 50,307 in a boisterous frenzy as the Frogs padded their lead to 35-7.

“It felt great," Carder said of his interception return. "It was my first one of the season and the first in a really long time for me. I thought the team played great tonight. I knew it was going to be a good game, we all did. We knew that we would have to come and play. We came and showed up and came out on top.”

Utah never recovered.

The Frogs – who gained 342 yards in the ground and 549 total yards – added a pair of field goals of 30 and 42 yards by Evans, and although Utah countered with a pair of touchdowns, they never got a spark going to have a comeback chance.

TCU increased its advantage to 48-21 with 12:50 remaining on a 14-yard run by Ed Wesley, who led all rushers with 137 yards on 12 carries.

The Frogs extended the lead to 55-21 on a nine-yard touchdown run by Tucker to complete the blowout.

Utah scored a meaningless touchdown with 2:29 left to play. What followed was a countdown by the packed crowd, and as the last seconds ticked away the TCU students – who came out in full force and never stopped cheering from the opening kickoff until the final gun – stormed the field in unison to celebrate the biggest TCU victory in the last 40 years.

Patterson acknowledged the large crowd, but – in typical fashion – warned about a letdown next week when the Frogs travel to Wyoming in a 1 p.m. (CST) MWC contest.

"Let me just say this," he began. "I want to start by thanking everyone that was here. I told them how we would play if they were all in purple, and we played like that tonight. We have two games left, and we aren’t going to talk about anything else.

"We have to go to Laramie, a tough place to play. I look at a Texas team that was down 14-10 at the half in Laramie. We’ve got things that we have to do. I’m very proud of my team, our fans and Fort Worth.

"ESPN GameDay and CBS College Sports gave us an opportunity to show people TCU football and Fort Worth. I was very humbled by the whole situation and very humbled by the way our kids played (Saturday night)."

Patterson, on the verge of his first undefeated season in Fort Worth, pointed to Dalton as the leader on offense.

“They don’t care what I think, but I know that we are pretty good," he said. "Andy Dalton is a special player. Again, he played great tonight. They gave us a lot of different looks and a lot of different zone blitzes, but we picked it up every time.

"The whole offense did a tremendous job. Ever since we talked about starting earlier before the BYU game, we’ve been starting early. Whether it was the new Nike duds, or whatever it was to help us beat them, it was a special night for us."

Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham gave proper respect to the Horned Frogs.

“They were who we thought they were," he said. "That is a good football team. I have been a head coach for five years, and that is the best team I’ve faced. They are a solid team from top to bottom, and we knew we were going to have to play our best to compete tonight. That did not happen. We made some errors. We had an interception for a touchdown, fumble on the kickoff, and a lot of things you just cannot do against a quality opponent."

TCU All-American defensive end Jerry Hughes gave props to the Frogs' offense.

“Coming into the game, we watched film on Utah and we prepared for them, so we kind of figured that it was going to be a dogfight," he said. "Our offense come out and played well, so you have to tip your cap to them. They scored when they needed to and that’s all you can ask.

“It is just a great win for our program. We had the largest crowd out there in TCU history, so we just tried to focus and bring home a win and that’s exactly what we did. Now we are just looking forward to playing Wyoming."