TCU will be completing their journey at Sofi Stadium in Inglewood, California, close to Hollywood. This will be the perfect conclusion to their surprising playoff run in college football.
Max Duggan had a hand in four touchdowns, and TCU scored twice on interceptions in their win over Michigan in the Fiesta Bowl semifinal on Saturday night. The third-ranked Horned Frogs (13-1) fought off a fierce comeback by the second-ranked Wolverines to secure a 51-45 victory. TCU will now face either the top-ranked Georgia Bulldogs or the fourth-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes in the national championship game on January 9th.
“They just played really tough football, hard-nosed football,” Dykes said in an interview. They “believed in their teammates, and just found a way to overcome and persevere.
Coming off of a losing season in 2021, and picked to finish seventh in the Big 12, the Horned Frogs will now play for the program’s first national championship since 1938. Fans and administrators are thrilled with the outcome of Sonny Dykes’ first year as coach.
After taking a month to achieve a ranking and facing doubt throughout their journey to their first playoff appearance, Duggan and TCU will likely be underdogs once again in the national championship game. However, their performance against Michigan (13-1) in the Fiesta Bowl showed that they are capable of turning the game into a high-scoring shootout reminiscent of the Big 12 conference in 2010. Despite being underestimated, the Horned Frogs were able to defeat the Big Ten champions.
The Fiesta Bowl between TCU and Michigan set a new record for the highest-scoring game in the bowl’s history and was second only to Georgia’s 54-48 victory over Oklahoma in the CFP on January 1, 2018 in terms of scoring. TCU, a small private school from Fort Worth, Texas that was not included in the Big 12 when it was first established in the mid-1990s, has made history by becoming the first team from the conference to win a CFP game and will also be the first to play for a national championship since Texas in 2009.
“The winner was football,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said during a postgame interview.
TCU had a 34-16 lead over Michigan after Winters scored on a 29-yard interception return with 2:46 left in the third quarter. The “Hypnotoads,” a nickname borrowed from the animated TV show “Futurama,” and their purple-clad fans drowned out the Michigan supporters at State Farm Stadium as they sensed that their dream of winning was still alive.
However, nothing has come easily for these Frogs. During their undefeated regular season, they won seven consecutive games by a margin of 10 points or fewer.
What followed was a series of five touchdown drives, with a TCU turnover in between, each taking less than a minute. Duggan attributed their ability to stay composed during the chaos to their “next-play mentality.”
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