Fort Worth and Dallas

For the first time in 53 years, Texas Christian University won a football conference title outright. With a 10-1 record overall (8-0 in the conference). The Horned Frogs have had a season to be proud of, for sure. For a lot of teams it might even be enough to get them into a BCS Bowl. Unfortunately that does not look to be the case for TCU. What makes the case all the more frustrating is that the only slip up on th entire schedule was against their cross-metroplex rivals, Southern Methodist University. With 2 games left in the season SMU is 3-6. It was a very disappointing loss for TCU in the second game of the season, and ultimately very costly. Losing 21-10 to SMU cost TCU the BCS limelight.

With as football crazy as Texas and the Dallas/Fort Worth area is you would think that the metroplex would be astir with glee because of TCU winning their first conference title in 53 years. Unfortunately this is not your father’s football conference. Perhaps if it were the Southwest Conference in the old days the public sentiment would be much higher. The Mountain West Conference does not carry any regional cache or clout for football fans in Texas.

TCU should be commended and applauded for finishing off their season with a 51-3 victory and running through the Mountain West undefeated. I hope they get a good bowl bid, although most fingers point to more regionalized bowls like the Liberty Bowl, instead of some of the larger and more prestigious bowls. I think TCU and it’s players should hold their head high for an excellent season. They finished 10-1 after starting off with what was at the time a HUGE win over Oklahoma, then the hang-over loss to SMU and then they followed that up with two by-the-seat-of-their-pants wins over Utah and BYU, both in overtime.