TCU Steps Easily Past Rice, 37-0
10/28/2000 12:00:00 AM | Football
STEPHEN HAWKINS
AP Sports Writer
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) (Oct. 28) - TCU made sure to keep the nation's longest winning streak for more than just a few hours.
LaDainian Tomlinson ran for 200 yards and two touchdowns and Chris Kaylakie kicked three field goals as the Horned Frogs beat Rice 37-0 on Saturday to extend their winning streak to 12 games, now the longest among major colleges.
TCU (7-0, 4-0 WAC) began play just as top-ranked Nebraska's 13-game winning streak was ending in a 31-14 loss at No. 3 Oklahoma.
Rice (2-5, 1-4) was the last team to beat TCU, a 42-21 victory over the Horned Frogs on Oct. 23, 1999. The Owls had won four straight in the series.
The Horned Frogs began the game with a 16-play, 94-yard scoring drive, their longest of the season. Tomlinson ended the drive with a 4-yard TD run.
Meanwhile, the nation's top-ranked defense limited Rice to just 186 yards and posted its second shutout in four games. The Owls only had 34 yards at halftime, when they trailed 20-0.
TCU scored on its opening possession for the 17th time in 22 games, a drive kept alive when Rice was penalized for a roughing the punter for a hit that left Frogs punter Joey Biasatti with a broken right leg.
Biasatti had just kicked the ball when linebacker Jeff Vanover made contact. The fibula and tibia bones in the punter's kicking leg both broke when he fell awkwardly to the ground.
The Frogs ran 12 more plays after the 15-yard penalty, with George Layne scoring on a 1-yard run.
Tomlinson's 3-yard TD in the second quarter gave TCU a 14-0 lead, and ended a nine-play drive on which he ran seven times for 27 yards. Casey Printers threw passes of 35 and 15 yards to Tim Maiden the other two plays.
Printers threw a 33-yard TD to LaTarence Dunbar with just 1:20 left in the game.
Rice reached the TCU 1 late in the third quarter, but Jaime Tyler was stuffed for no gain on two straight plays before an option play on fourth-and-goal on the first play of the fourth quarter lost five yards. Eleven plays later, Tomlinson scored for the second time to make it 30-0.
Tomlinson, the nation's leading rusher with 1,293 yards (184.7 ypg), finished with 41 carries. It was his ninth straight game with more than 100 yards and third this season with at least 200 yards.
Kaylakie's first two field goals came after TCU recovered fumbles by Rice freshman quarterback Jeremy Hurd inside the 20 in the second quarter. The field goals were from 24 and 22 yards, the second coming with just four seconds left in the half.
Kaylakie added 34-yard field goal in the third quarter. That came 12 plays after Hurd's pass on fourth-and-5 from the TCU 19 was incomplete.
This was the last scheduled meeting between the instate rivals, who had played every year since 1923. TCU, moving from the WAC to Conference USA next season, leads the series 41-35-3.
