AUSTIN – Explosive plays by Kendre Miller and Quentin Johnston were enough for the TCU Horned Frogs (10-0) to remain perfect on the season and clinch one of the two spots in the Big 12 championship game in a 17-10 win on the road against the Texas Longhorns (6-4). Texas was shut out in the first half and didn’t register it’s a first down until the first play of the second quarter. 

Miller stretched TCU’s lead to 10-0 when he raced 75 yards for the game’s first touchdown with 5:08 left in the third quarter. The Horned Frogs only had 75 yards of total offense in the previous eight possessions. Texas’ defensive line controlled most of the early action, registering four sacks and only allowing .3 yards a rush over the first two quarters. 

Texas cut the lead to 10-3 on the ensuing possession, but the Horned Frogs responded with a nine-play, 80-yard drive that culminated in a 31-yard touchdown pass from Max Duggan to Quentin Johnston, a one-time Texas commit, to increase the lead to 17-3 with 12:36 left in the fourth quarter. 

THREE THOUGHTS  

An incredible turnaround: TCU parted ways with long-time head coach Gary Patterson during the 2021 season. Dykes wasn’t a sexy choice. His only stint at a Power Five program ended in disaster at Cal. He was passed up in favor of Steve Sarkisian for the Texas job when Tom Herman was fired. His SMU teams faded late in the season. No one predicted a Big 12 championship run for the Horned Frogs, much less a flirtation with the College Football Playoffs. 

Yet, TCU is two games away from running the table in the regular season and three wins away from clinching a spot in one of the two national semifinals. Dykes is the first coach in Big 12 history to start his career with 10 wins. None of it was pretty on Saturday against the Longhorns. The offensive line struggled. Duggan was pressured throughout the night. Even the quick passing game went nowhere for much of the contest. But it was the Horned Frogs that came up with winning plays in crunch time. 

Quinn Ewers shouldn’t be untouchable: A redshirt freshman who didn’t throw a single pass last year at Ohio State and missed multiple games this season due to injury shouldn’t be guaranteed every snap, yet it feels like Steve Sarkisian won’t bench Ewers under any situation. It was true in a collapse against Oklahoma State a few weeks ago, and it was true again on Saturday in the loss to TCU. Ewers started the game 0 of 7 with an interception. It didn’t get much better for the Southlake Carroll product. 

Ewers is an extremely talented player. He was a five-star recruit who garnered attention from every major program in the country for a reason, but he’s not a finished product and he’s hindering Texas’ ability to win games. The Longhorns needed a spark offensively, and Sark wasn’t willing to bench his quarterback to give Hudson Card an opportunity to provide it. Card’s ability to run might have allowed Texas to move the ball. 

Ewers was 17 of 39 for 171 yards and an interception in the loss. He’s completing 45.3 percent of his passes for 229 yards per game and four touchdowns to four interceptions over the last three games. A player with that type of production would get benched at any other position on the football field. He’s being treated like a multiple-year starter with skins on the wall rather than a quarterback still trying to earn a spot. 

Second-half Sark: Texas is now 11-11 under Steve Sarkisian. The Longhorns were outscored 14-10 in the second half of the loss to TCU, which means Texas is now -83 in the second half during the 11 losses of his tenure. This team was 7-3 in the final year under Tom Herman. In Herman’s second year, Texas won 10 games, including a win in the Sugar Bowl over Georgia. And we can all admit that Herman inherited a much worse roster than Sarkisian. Texas is regressing with the SEC on the doorstep. To lose this game as a seven-point favorite with multiple five-star talents in attendance must be disappointing. The Longhorns wasted a great effort by its defense, which accounted for four more points than the offense. Sark’s side of the ball is costing Texas, and that’s a side of the football with Ewers, Bijan Robinson, Xavier Worthy, and Ja’Tavion Sanders.