Unbeaten and Unable to Do Anything More
By PETE THAMEL
PASADENA, Calif. — In the shadows of the San Gabriel Mountains, change can come slowly. At the Rose Bowl, where college football clings to tradition with white-knuckle fervor, fullbacks can still be in vogue, tight ends act as primary pass catchers and the punter can be valued as a skill position player.
With Texas Christian facing Wisconsin in this year’s game, college football’s most historic backdrop also proved a fitting one. The Horned Frogs of the Mountain West Conference are considered interlopers; the traditionalists, commissioners and bowl executives certainly would have preferred Stanford of the Pacific-10 playing in the Rose Bowl.
But with a 21-19 victory over No. 4 Wisconsin of the Big Ten, No. 3 T.C.U. solidified its standing as one of college football’s elite programs and made observers wonder how it would have stacked up against No. 1 Auburn or No. 2 Oregon. The victory capped a 13-0 season for the Horned Frogs and a train wreck of a day for the Big Ten. The league lost its five bowl games on Saturday by a combined score of 204-102 and left the Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee open for mockery.
Gee chided T.C.U. and Boise State, who play outside college football’s six power conferences, for competing against teams like the “Little Sisters of the Poor.”
“I’m going to New Orleans tomorrow, and Antoine’s is a great restaurant,” Gee said when reached on his cellphone Saturday night. “I think they serve crow, and I’ll be eating my portion of that. T.C.U. played a great game and they deserved to be recognized for that. Obviously T.C.U. is a great ball team.”
T.C.U. Coach Gary Patterson resisted the opportunity to retaliate against Gee, saying: “I don’t have any messages for him. I make mistakes every day.”
His Horned Frogs did not make many Saturday, as the team with the country’s top-ranked defense showed it could equalize Wisconsin’s size with speed and versatility. T.C.U. became the third program from outside the six power conferences to win a B.C.S. game, joining Utah and Boise State. It is also the first team from outside the power leagues to win the Rose Bowl since Columbia beat Stanford, 7-0, in 1934.
“Today we played for us and everyone else out there who wanted a chance,” Patterson said.
And the Horned Frogs sealed the victory, fittingly, with one last defensive stand by a player who epitomizes their program. After Wisconsin pulled within 2 points with two minutes remaining on a 4-yard touchdown run by Montee Ball, T.C.U.’s Tank Carder made the game’s defining play.
The Badgers inexplicably went to a shotgun formation for the 2-point conversion, and quarterback Scott Tolzien had tight end Jacob Pedersen wide open one step over the goal line. But Carder, who was stymied on his blitz attempt, leapt up and knocked down the ball to seal the victory for T.C.U.
“I just jumped up and swatted it away,” he said. “I can’t even explain it. It feels so good.”
The play left the Wisconsin coaching staff open to second guessing. After a dominating drive in which the Badgers used their superior size to run the ball on 9 of 10 plays, Wisconsin went away from its strength, and its roots, by lining up in the shotgun and passing the ball.
“That was something we saw on film,” Bielema said, defending the call. “And obviously the guy was open, but you’ve got to get the defender’s hands down in that situation. Hindsight is 20/20.”
It was easy to see that T.C.U. belonged on this stage, with no player showing that more than the senior quarterback Andy Dalton, who played almost flawlessly as he ran for a touchdown and threw for another. The Horned Frogs will join the Big East in 2012, and they may have planted seeds for future B.C.S. bowl wins on the Rose Bowl’s hallowed turf. Their recruiting profile will only increase, as will their access to B.C.S. bowl games.
“The truth will come out when they enter into a B.C.S. conference and play someone of those caliber of those conferences week in and week out,” Wisconsin Coach Bret Bielema said. “I don’t think they’re a Cinderella story.”
Before college football had a national title game, there would have been heavy lobbying for first-place votes in the aftermath of a marquee bowl victory. While Patterson complimented his team, he resisted the urge to make any grandiose statements.
Patterson said he looked forward to watching the national title game on his couch without worrying about what blitz to dial up. He appeared more appreciative of the opportunity to play in the Rose Bowl than concerned with college football’s method of determining a national champion.
“It’s like anything else in college football or anything else you have in life,” he said. “There is a set of rules of how it is, and right now this is the way that it is. I’ve never been a whiner, I’ve never been somebody that’s been out there griping about how it is, and I’m not going to start now.”
Instead, by the time the sun set on college football’s most historic backdrop, the Rose Bowl had played host to something very untraditional — a showcase of just how parity-laden college football has become.
For all of the Big 10’s history, cable money and pride, the interlopers from the Mountain West stole the show beneath the Hollywood sign. An in this modern era of college football, few could really be surprised that T.C.U., which entered the game as a favorite, thumbed their nose at tradition.
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