TCU 40, San Diego State 35 • Notre Dame 28, Utah 3. At one point this afternoon, TCU scored 37 unanswered points while holding San Diego State's offense without a first down on nine straight possessions over almost three full quarters. But the Horned Frogs started slow, falling into a quick 14-0 hole in the first six minutes, and finished slow, yielding three garbage-time touchdowns with the win well in hand. And that final score ... for a team in a struggle to the death to maintain its lead over a mid-major peer that just crushed an overmatched conference rival 52-14 on national television, that is not a good final score.That's true not only for box score-watching voters, but also as it relates to TCU's usual M.O. of total destruction. The Aztecs' four offensive touchdowns were twice as many as the chart-topping TCU defense had allowed in the last six games combined. They snapped a 12-game streak of Mountain West opponents who'd fallen to the Horned Frogs by at least 27 points. Thirty-five points is the most the they've allowed since giving up 35 to Oklahoma in early 2008 – and that was the lowest output of the regular season by the highest-scoring offense in college football history. It's the closest anyone has come this year to giving the Frogs a tough game.
In the long run, though, that's not going to be nearly as damaging to their BCS campaign as Utah's absolute flop at Notre Dame. On one hand, it's the Irish's best win in years – they hadn't beaten a ranked team, at the time of the game or at the end of the season, since early 2006 – and goes a long way to counteract the extreme negativity in South Bend in the wake of back-to-back losses to Navy and Tulsa. On the other, the Utes couldn't have looked further from the alleged contender that welcomed TCU last week for one of the most hyped games of the year. Going into that showdown, the Utes were ranked fifth in the BCS and outscoring their first eight opponents by 31 points per game. In that context, the Frogs' 47-7 rout, on the road, looked as impressive as any win any team has logged this season.
After today, it looks more like a routine blowout over an overrated team that's lost its grip on the season than a top-of-the-resumé statement. Utah won't be in the polls Sunday, and neither will Oregon State after somehow being trounced at home by hapless Washington State, likely leaving the Horned Frogs without a ranked victim on the slate and only lowly New Mexico left in two weeks. Today was the last chance to leave another respectable foe twitching in the dust, to continue to display total invulnerability against a maligned schedule, but where the vageries of a neck-and-neck BCS race are involved, you can't afford to leave the hive mind with any doubts.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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