Wahoo Wire

A team with 401 yards of rushing offense, 157 total yards allowed, six sacks, eight first downs allowed, and zero points allowed in a game sounds like a Big Ten team.  But they aren’t; they’re the game stats for TCU against a Big Ten opponent in the first round of the Division I-A Playoffs.

“I don’t think we’ve been beaten as soundly as we were today at all this season,” Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said.  “We were beaten at our own game, and in every aspect of it.”

For a conference built upon tough, physical football, tonight’s game was a total disaster for that reputation.  TCU dominated from the opening kickoff, pressuring Hawkeye quarterback Ricky Stanzi into bad situations and bad throws and denying the Iowa running attack any room to run.

Stanzi finished with only nine completions with no touchdowns and only 118 yards passing and the Horned-Frog run defense was even more impressive holding Iowa to a mere 39 yards on 38 carries.

It seemed that every time Iowa would begin to get some life, the TCU defense would jab it’s foot back on the throat and kill the drive quickly.

“We had that great run by Adam [Robinson] for 30 something yards and I thought we were going to get back in the game then,” said Stanzi.  “It was only a 14 point hole at that point and we were close to at least a field goal, but they just denied us.  I don’t think we really recovered from that.”

www.deseretnews.com

What they couldn’t recover from after that run by Robinson were three sacks in a row to push the Iowa offense back beyond midfield and into a punting situation.  On the first play after the punt, TCU running back Joesph Turner sprinted for 60 yards setting up player of the game Matthew Tucker’s second touchdown run to make it 21-0.

“Back-breaking.  Absolutely backbreaking,” Ferentz called that sequence.  “When you’re on the road against a team like this, you can’t have those types of drives because they will make you pay.  And we paid today.”

For Horned-Frog fans, this game was like all the others they had seen so far this season.  TCU led the nation in margin of victory (27.6), was second in points allowed per game (11.6), and was sixth in time of possession percentage (54.5%) this season, so frankly, this result should hardly be a surprise.

“We know we can play with these bigger teams and we know we can beat most of ‘em,” TCU defensive end Jerry Hughes said afterwards.  “There’s no issue of confidence amongst us players on this team…it’s getting all the rest of y’all to figure it out.”

After their first round performance tonight, TCU will face the winner of tonight’s Boise State/West Virginia game at the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona.

And this time, the nation won’t be surprised with an outcome like this.

Results of Other Games:

#1 Alabama vs. #16 Troy

#8 Oregon vs. #9 Ohio State

#4 TCU vs. #13 Iowa

#5 Boise State vs. #12 West Virginia

————–

#2 Texas vs. #15 Central Michigan

#7 Georgia Tech vs. #10 LSU

#6 Florida vs. #11 Virginia Tech

#3 Cincinnati vs. #14 East Carolina