Texas Christian v. Arkansas

We have spent a lot of time watching Coach Gary Patterson and his Texas Christian Horned Frogs, and we have gotten to know them quite well.  There are things I like about them, and things I don't.  One thing I like is seeing Texas Christian take on its rivals from the old Southwest Conference.  Texas Christian and Arkansas played each other for 62 seasons in a row, from 1930 to 1991.  From 1930 until 1958, Texas Christian won this fixture more often than it lost.  But in 1958, Arkansas brought in a coach named Frank Broyles, and he started a whole new era.  The Razorbacks lost to the Horned Frogs 12 to 7 in 1958, and then beat them 22 years in a row -- one of the longest such streaks in D-1 football history.  The streak finally ended in 1981, when Texas Christian won 28 to 24.  Arkansas then won seven of the next eight until 1990, when the Frogs won 54-26.  Arkansas won the next meeting, 22 to 21 -- and then decamped for the SEC.

During Arkansas's last 30 years or so in the Southwest Conference, they were one of the top programs in the country, while Texas Christian was one of the worst.  Many of their match-ups during this era were easy blowouts for the Razorbacks, such as their 28-0 win in 1965 to retain the UCFC.

But since Arkansas left for the SEC, the two teams' fortunes have reversed.  The Razorbacks have never won the SEC in football, so they have no conference football titles since 1989.  They have only one top-10 finish in the AP poll since joining the SEC, and they have two Cotton Bowl wins, and no other significant bowl wins.  Their best coach during this era was Bobby Petrino, who lasted four years before losing his job due to a personal scandal.  By contrast, since 1991 Texas Christian has won nine conference titles -- in five different conferences.  They worked their way from the Western Athletic Conference all the way up to the Big XII.  They finished in the top 10 in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2014, and 2015.  They have won the Rose Bowl and the Peach Bowl.  For someone like me who came of age in the 1970's, it is quite a change.

Arkansas has two other things working against it.  They will be on the road, and Texas Christian is much, much better in the friendly confines of Amon G. Carter Stadium than it is away from home. Furthermore, the Big XII teams get very fired up to play the S! E! C! and they have crushed the SEC in recent UCFC action.  Check out these scores:

01/02/2014:  Oklahoma 45, Alabama 31 (Sugar Bowl)
09/13/2014:  Oklahoma 34, Tennessee 10
12/31/2014:  Texas Christian 42, Mississippi 3 (Peach Bowl)

Alabama and Ole Miss were pretty good teams, and they were not particularly competitive.

Texas Christian also plays better when they have a challenge.  I have never seen a college football team whose performance can vary so much from one week to the next -- or one half to the next.  Last week, Texas Christian fell behind South Dakota State 17-7 -- and then outscored SDSU by 52-24 the rest of the way.  And we've seen them do this before.  Last year, they trailed K-State 35-17 at the half, and won 52-45.  Then they trailed Iowa State 21-14 after one quarter, only to win 45-21.  They fell behind Oklahoma 30-13 after three quarters, and lost 30-29.  And of course, they were behind Oregon 31-0 at halftime of the Alamo, only to come back and win 47-41 in three overtimes.

This is just what they do.

But most of those games were on the road.  At home, against a real opponent, the Frogs tend to crush you.  Last year, at home, they beat Texas 50-7.  They beat West Virginia 40-10.  I don't know why being at home would help their defense so much, but it usually does.

Tomorrow, they will be at home, they will be defending the UCFC, and they will be playing an SEC team.  So I expect the defense to play for the full 60 minutes, which will make them very tough to beat.

The oddsmakers are expecting a closer game than I am.  They've made Texas Christian a 7-point favorite in a game where they expect 58 points of offense.  That would work out to something like a 33-26 win for the Frogs.  That doesn't seem right to me -- I'm thinking it will be more like 45-24.  But that's why they play the games on the field.

But it's interesting how history works.  One of the reasons Arkansas left for the SEC was so they wouldn't have to play a patsy like Texas Christian any more.  And now, the Razorbacks are hoping to use a win over Texas Christian to make themselves nationally relevant again.