Horned Frogs fans know the history with the Buckeyes.
Is No. 3 TCU doomed to repeat it on conference championship weekend? The Horned Frogs (12-0) face No. 10 Kansas State (9-3) in the Big 12 championship game. With a victory, the Horned Frogs will reach the College Football Playoff under first-year coach Sonny Dykes.
A loss, however, could open a nasty debate with No. 5 Ohio State (11-1) for that playoff spot. There is beef between the Horned Frogs and Buckeyes, and it dates back to the Bowl Championship Series era and took off in 2014.
A look at the potential head-to-head debate and the uneasy history between Ohio State and TCU.
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Ohio State vs. TCU: If Horned Frogs lose ...
This scenario operates with the assumption that No. 5 USC beats No. 11 Utah in the Pac-12 championship game on Friday. At that point, a TCU loss would be Ohio State’s only real hope at sneaking back into the College Football Playoff.
What would the Buckeyes’ case be? The victories against No. 8 Penn State and No. 21 Notre Dame are in play, and Ohio State won every game by double digits before the 45-23 loss to No. 2 Michigan at Ohio Stadium. The Buckeyes won 11 games by an average of 25.3 points per game, which is much larger than TCU at 14.5 points per game. TCU did beat four straight ranked opponents in October, but Kansas State is the only one of those teams ranked now.
Of course, TCU has a strong rebuttal. It has to play a 13th game because it qualified for a conference championship, and it beat No. 20 Texas – who is one spot ahead of the Irish. The Horned Frogs didn’t lose at home. There will be a lot of talk about strength of schedule. TCU beat 11 FBS opponents with a combined record of 66-66 (.500). The Buckeyes beat 11 FBS opponents with a combined record of 62-70 (.469). It’s not a substantial gap either way, but the Big Ten-Big 12 strength of schedule argument is negligible. Bottom line. TCU didn’t lose in the regular season at home in blowout fashion. The Buckeyes did.
If Kansas State does beat TCU, the final score could absolutely be a factor.
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Revisiting 2014: OSU leap-frogs TCU for CFP
Why do the Buckeyes make the Horned Frogs a little – pun intended – jumpy?
Go back to 2014. TCU (10-1) was ranked No. 3 in the penultimate set of CFP rankings ahead of No. 4 Florida State (12-0), No. 5 Baylor (10-1) and No. 6 Ohio State (11-1). The Horned Frogs’ only loss was a 61-58 shootout against the Bears on Oct. 11.
TCU played a regular-season conference game on the final weekend and hammered Iowa State 55-3. The Seminoles, the defending national champions, beat No. 12 Georgia Tech 37-35 in the ACC championship game, and the Buckeyes beat No. 11 Wisconsin 59-0 in the Big Ten championship game.
The Big 12 did not have a conference championship game at the time.
How did the final rankings shake out? The Horned Frogs finished No. 6 behind Florida State, Ohio State and Baylor. Garry Patterson, the former TCU coach who won Sporting News coach of the Year honors that season, criticized the decision.
"(Conference) championship games shouldn't have mattered,” Patterson said. "Their job was to watch all this film and pick the four best teams no matter who you played, what you did. All of the sudden it came down to, 'Well, they played a championship game but they didn't.' That's not what we were told. We were told they were going to pick the four best teams.'"
Ohio State would beat Alabama and Oregon to win the first College Football Playoff championship.
The TCU-Ohio State beef predated the CFP era, however.
Revisiting 2010: TCU vs. 'Little Sisters of the Poor'
Patterson had another excellent team in 2010, which was led by quarterback Andy Dalton. The Horned Frogs were No. 3 in the first BCS standings on Oct. 31. TCU was in the Mountain West Conference at the time, and that frustrated other power conference teams trying to move up the rankings. It also prompted then-Ohio State school president E. Gordon Gee to criticize TCU and Boise State with an unforgettable one-liner.
"We do not play the Little Sisters of the Poor," he said.
TCU finished unbeaten that season and ranked No. 3 behind fellow unbeatens Auburn and Oregon. In the Rose Bowl, TCU beat Big Ten champion No. 5 Wisconsin 21-19. The Badgers had beaten the Buckeyes 31-18 that season. That prompted a group of TCU fans to buy a billboard in Columbus, Ohio, with a return message:
"Congratulations TCU for their BCS Rose Bowl victory – Little Sisters of the Poor."
Will tensions flare up in 2022?
Ohio State played TCU at AT&T Stadium in 2018. Ryan Day was the acting coach while Urban Meyer was serving a three-game suspension, and Patterson was still at TCU. The Buckeyes won 40-28 in an exciting matchup.
Four years later, the tensions between the programs will escalate if this scenario plays out. After all, the Buckeyes would be favored in a hypothetical matchup between the two teams.
Potential @CFBPlayoff matchups of this week’s top five ranked teams & point spreads (all neutral sites) via @_Collin1
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) November 30, 2022
UGA -4½ Michigan
UGA -10 TCU
UGA -13½ USC
UGA -5 Ohio S
Michigan -5½ TCU
Michigan -9 USC
Michigan Pk Ohio St
TCU -3½ USC
Ohio St -5 TCU
Ohio St -8½ USC
If the committee had to chose one, would they go with the feel-good team that lost in the conference championship or the mega-brand who had one off day against another playoff team?
TCU knows better than to let it come to that.