You might recall a game played 18 years ago.
A national title contender played a Big 12 road game.
Then came Matt Davison, riding to Nebraska’s rescue against Missouri:
That was 1997. The play was called “The Flea Kicker.”
Nebraska went on to win a share of the national championship with Michigan.
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That Nebraska-Missouri game, of course, was played later in the season. For the injury-ravaged TCU Horned Frogs, the calendar is still in September. It’s going to be very difficult for the Frogs to leap over every remaining opponent and get enough breaks to overcome their plague of injuries. (It’s been as Biblical as anything the Egyptians had to deal with in the Old Testament.)
They got one break on Saturday, that’s for sure.
Unlucky in the face of a questionable reversal of a fumble by Texas Tech, the Frogs watched the scales swing back in their favor.
TC f'n U! Oh My! #TCUvsTTU https://t.co/6BUC5Exz5S
— The Comeback NCAA (@TheComebackNCAA) September 27, 2015
They then watched with hearts in their stomachs as Texas Tech came within 10 yards of winning Saturday’s (expectedly, yet unforeseeably dramatic) shootout in Lubbock, Texas:
The band wasn't on the field and Texas Tech didn't quite find the end zone, but this final play was still amazing: http://t.co/1mLVGLmK5A
— ESPN (@espn) September 27, 2015
What was “The Flea Kicker” for Nebraska in 1997 became “The Flea Tipper” for TCU in 2015. We’ll see if TCU rides this moment as far as Nebraska did. We’ll have to let the season play out, as unsexy as that sounds.
In the meantime, what can we take away from a game in which TCU won despite having the whole of its defense — almost literally (meaning, almost all of its 11 originally projected starters) — not play in this contest?
First, the TCU offense — though given a bit of an assist by the fates at the end — held up its end of the bargain. Even if you take away The Flea Tipper, TCU scored 48 points. Moreover, the Frogs had a (poorly-struck) field goal get blocked. That block was not so much the product of a Texas Tech push as it was the low trajectory of the kick. TCU then missed a 25-yard field goal later in the game. Considering that TCU’s defense committed a late hit which prolonged a Texas Tech drive and turned a likely three points into seven, the TCU offense simply didn’t get enough help from the Frogs’ special-teams and defensive units. That last fortunate bounce was in many ways the fates’ way of rewarding Trevone Boykin, Josh Doctson, and Aaron Green for a great day at the office.
We knew TCU’s offense was talented, but one has to realize that the Frogs scored only 23 points against Minnesota a few weeks ago. A big number was likely today, but the Frogs had to go out and put in the work to make it happen. One also has to keep in mind that Saturday’s game against Texas Tech figured to be extremely close, given the boatload of injuries TCU was confronting on defense. It’s a unique kind of pressure for an offense when it takes the field KNOWING it has to score around 50 to have a good chance to win, and that 40 points almost certainly won’t cut it. TCU’s offense was worthy of the moment this time.
It will have to continue to be in the next several weeks.
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The other big lesson learned in this game is that in a super shootout such as this one, a coach should play to win a game by landing a knockout punch, not by trying to win a decision.
What does this mean? Here’s the simple explanation:
After a TCU punt, Texas Tech got the ball back with nearly five minutes left in regulation, leading by a 52-48 score.
Texas Tech had been throwing the ball with noticeable success against TCU. It’s what Tech does best. It’s what coach Kliff Kingsbury teaches the best.
In a 10-7 game or a 13-10 game — one in which the two defenses have been calling the shots — yes, it makes sense to try to drain clock with five minutes left. In any game in which the opposing team doesn’t have the specific combination of a great offense and a severely depleted defense, sure: run the ball and make it hard for the opponent to beat you.
If the other team’s offense isn’t that great, punting to that offense with 1:30 left — after that team has had to burn all its timeouts on defense — is a natural and sound strategy.
TCU, though, was not that kind of opponent.
Realize this as a point of emphasis: Texas Tech wasn’t trying to sit on the ball for a two-minute span. The Red Raiders were trying to run out a full five minutes. On a day when the scoreboard and the lead had been ping-ponging from one side to the other, the best way to feel safe — with more than three or four minutes left — was to get a touchdown and a two-score lead.
Kingsbury, though, ran the ball twice and put his passing game into a make-or-punt situation on third and four. Texas Tech might have been bitterly unlucky on The Flea Tipper, but Kingsbury put his team in position to lose with his play-not-to-lose approach. You can say TCU was fortunate, but Texas Tech’s head coach allowed fortune to have the final say for the Horned Frogs on a day no one in Fort Worth will ever forget…
…especially if this TCU season is somehow able to stay on track despite all the injuries which have felled the Frogs.
Texas Tech had its own chance to make TCU croak… but an untimely show of timidity from a young head coach set the table for the latest “miracle play with a name” in college football’s ridiculously insane and colorful history.
