TCU Set For Season Finale Against Southern Miss
12/3/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
Dec. 3, 2001
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A winning record and a galleryfurniture.com Bowl bid are in the balance when the TCU Horned Frogs (5-5, 3-3) travel to Hattiesburg, Miss. to face the Southern Miss Golden Eagles (6-4, 4- 3) on Friday, December 7 in the final regular season game of the year. The game will be nationally televised on ESPN2 with kickoff set for 6:00 p.m. The Frogs are coming off their best win of the season, a 37-22 drubbing of conference champion and 17th-ranked Louisville on November 23 in Fort Worth.
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD:
The Frogs are putting the finishing touches on a 16-week season, one that began back on August 25 in Lincoln, Nebraska. After opening the season with a 21-7 setback to the fourth-ranked Cornhuskers in the Pigskin Classic, the Frogs logged consecutive wins at North Texas (19-5) and at SMU (38-10) before falling by a 27-24 count in overtime to Division I-AA Northwestern State in their home opener to finish the non-conference slate with a 2-2 mark. The Frogs had their September 15 game vs. Marshall cancelled due to the national tragedies and did not resched-ule that game this season. TCU won its conference lidlifter at Houston on September 29 by a 34-17 score, dropped a 48-22 decision at Tulane on October 13, came back with a 38-20 victory over Army on October 20, then had a dramatic second half rally fall short to East Carolina on October 30, 37-30, before losing a 38-17 decision at UAB on November 10, setting up its improbable win over Louisville. The Horned Frogs spent the past five years in the Western Athletic Conference, recording back-to-back conference titles in 1999 and 2000. The Frogs are playing in their 105th season of intercollegiate football. They own an all-time record of 489-490-57.
PATTERSON'S POINTS:
On the win over Louisville: "We had a couple of weeks to prepare for the game. We could feel we had a chance to win the game. We wanted to show that we are as good as any team in Conference USA. It was our most complete game of the season." On the number of personal fouls: "Louisville is very physical and tried to intimidate us, but we didn't back down. That game will become a rivalry. The championship is this league will go through Louisville and Southern Miss." On the TCU offense: "Hats off to our offense. They have taken a lot of criticism all year. We were able to run the ball and control the line of scrimmage."
FROGS NEED A WIN:
The Horned Frogs surprised the experts with a victory over 17th-ranked Louisville in their last contest and now need a victory in their season-finale at Southern Miss to finish with a winning record and to receive a bid to the galleryfurniture.com Bowl. The Frogs have reached the post-season in each of their last three seasons, the first time in school history that TCU has appeared in three straight bowl games.
BEEN HERE BEFORE:
TCU has won its last two regular season games in each of the last three seasons. The 1998 squad was also 4-5 with two games to play and posted wins at Tulsa and at UNLV to become bowl-eligible. That team defeated USC in the Sun Bowl, 28-19 to com-plete a 7-5 season.
C-USA BOWL PARTNERS:
Conference USA has ties with four bowls: the GMAC Bowl in Mobile, Alabama on December 19 (East Carolina vs. Marshall), the galleryfurniture.com Bowl in Houston on December 28 (TCU or Southern Miss vs. Big 12), the Motor City Bowl in Detroit on December 29 (Cincinnati vs. Toledo), and the AXA Liberty Bowl in Memphis on December 31 (Louisville vs. BYU).
THE LAST TIME OUT:
TCU scored twice in the first 1:56 of the game, taking a 14-0 lead before its defense stepped on the field, and never looked back in a 37-22 rout of 17th-ranked Louisville on November 23 in Fort Worth. Casey Printers hit Adrian Madise with an 80-yard touchdown strike on the first play from scrim-mage, then the Frogs recovered a "sky" kick and Printers went in from three yards out just four plays later. Printers finished the day with 256 yards passing including three touchdown strikes. Madise caught four passes for 116 yards, his third straight 100-yard receiving day, and Matt Schobel caught a pair of touchdown passes. Ricky Madison set career bests with 31 carries for 156 yards on the ground to help TCU outgain the Cardinals, 434 to 334. Nick Browne added three field goals, including a career-long 50-yarder. The Frogs defense sacked Louisville quarterback Dave Ragone nine times and established a school record with -47 yards rushing allowed.
Linebacker LaMarcus McDonald led the way with 5 1/2 tackles for losses totaling 48 yards. The Frogs also forced four fumbles, recovering three. SO LONG SENIORS: This is the final regular season contest for the TCU Horned Frog seniors, including linebacker Chad Bayer, strong safety Robert Dominguez, free safety Jason Higham, defensive end Joe Hill, defensive end Chad McCarty, weak safety Charlie Owens, cornerback Kendrick Patterson, offensive guard Victor Payne, tight end B. J. Roberts, tight end Matt Schobel and linebacker Justin Sheffield. Tailback Andrew Hayes-Stoker will petition the NCAA for a med-ical hardship and a sixth year of eligibility.
SENIOR SALUTE:
This TCU senior class has been on the winning side of the ledger more often than not during their careers. Over the past four seasons, TCU has recorded 30 wins, the best four-year total since the 1955-58 teams also post-ed 30 wins (9, 8, 5 and 8). The school record for wins over a four-year period is 40, set from 1932- 35 (10, 10, 8 and 12).
WINNING WAYS:
The Frogs need a victory over Southern Miss to stretch their streak of con-secutive winning seasons to four. The last time TCU recorded as many as four consecutive win-ning seasons was during the 1950s when they recorded five straight winning ledgers from 1955- 59. TCU has had a winning campaign in five of the last seven years, but just eight times in the past 35 years. Incidentally, a Frogs victory over Southern Miss would also even up the school's all-time ledger. They currently own a 489-490-57 mark after 1,036 games.
NEGATIVE IS A POSITIVE:
The Frogs held Louisville to a school record -47 yards rushing, as they notched a dozen tackles for loss, totaling 101 yards. The effort lifted TCU into 10th place nationally in rushing defense, with an average of just 93.8 yards allowed rushing per game. Here are the top efforts for rushing yards allowed in school history:
THE SERIES:
TCU and Southern Miss have met twice previously on the gridiron, with each team winning once. The Frogs, with Jim Wacker at the helm, came away with a 19-17 win in Fort Worth on September 23, 1989. Ron Jiles threw for 187 yards and two touchdown passes and Tommy Palmer ran for a career-high 120 yards to help the Frogs snap a six-game losing streak. Brett Favre was 20-for-36 for 194 yards for the Golden Eagles, who were coached by Curley Hallman. TCU went on to post a 4-7 record that season, while USM finished with a 5-6 slate. The teams did not meet again until the 2000 GMAC Mobile Alabama Bowl. Jeff Kelly hit Kenny Johnson with a 28-yard touchdown pass with eight seconds remaining in the game to lift Southern Miss to a 28-21 victory in front of a sellout crowd of 40,300 fans at Ladd-Peebles Stadium. The Golden Eagles (8-4) held Doak Walker Award winner LaDainian Tomlinson to 118 yards (his lowest total of the season) on 28 carries in Gary Patterson's first head coaching assignment for the Horned Frogs, who finished the season with a 10-2 mark. Tomlinson was named the game's Most Valuable Player, while Southern Miss's Leroy Handy and Leo Barnes took home the Offensive and Defensive Player of the Game honors respectively.
