Horned Frogs still on target for BCS after routing BYU on the road

TCU’s BCS march continues after rout

PROVO, Utah — Coach Gary Patterson didn’t want to talk about the BCS until after TCU faced BYU on the road.

Considering what the Horned Frogs did to the Cougars, there will be no escaping the Bowl Championship Series potential for unbeaten TCU now.

The Horned Frogs passed Boise State in the standings on Sunday, a day after beating BYU 38-7. Now the unbeaten Horned Frogs are in position to be this season’s BCS buster.

Patterson was still a little reluctant to talk about the BCS after Saturday night’s win, but did acknowledge that it was a huge step for the Frogs (7-0, 3-0 Mountain West).

“We’ll see how the votes and the computers and all those people do that stuff and see how it turns out,” Patterson said after the Frogs’ ninth straight victory.

TCU (7-0, 3-0 Mountain West) has five games remaining and only two are against teams with winning records. The Frogs will be back at home for No. 19 Utah (6-1, 3-0) on Nov. 14 and on the road the following week against Wyoming (4-3, 2-1).

The defending conference champion Utes appear to be the biggest hurdle the Frogs have left to clear and there will be plenty of incentive. Utah pulled off a late comeback last year and gave TCU its only loss in conference play en route to the Utes’ second BCS appearance.

The Frogs are hoping for their first BCS berth, but still have to keep an eye on Boise State. The Broncos, whose only loss last year was to TCU in the Poinsettia Bowl, appear on their way to another perfect regular season, too.

Any chance the BCS will make room for teams from the Mountain West and Western Athletic Conference?

“If we were ever going to do things for the right reasons sometimes, maybe it might be one of those times that this might get done,” Patterson said. “We’ll see. We’ll see what happens in five weeks.”

The Frogs certainly bolstered their argument Saturday.

Andy Dalton passed for 241 yards and three touchdowns, including a 75-yard play to Antoine Hicks that put TCU up 31-7 with 5:53 left in the third quarter.

Dalton improved to 24-6 as TCU’s starter, just five wins behind the school record of 29 victories held by Sammy Baugh.

“We’ve got a lot of athletes. My job is just to get them the ball,” said Dalton, who completed 13 of 24 passes.

He had an easy night thanks to his offensive line and TCU’s defense, which came up with five sacks while holding BYU (6-2, 3-1) to fewer than 300 yards.

BYU’s only score was a 3-yard touchdown pass from Max Hall to Harvey Unga on a fourth down late in the second quarter. The Cougars were already down 21-0 and needed to risk it on fourth down and try to take something positive into halftime. BYU got the touchdown, but TCU shut out the Cougars the rest of the way.

“I tried to take what they gave us but they were just better,” Hall said with a shake of his head. “They were just better than we were tonight.”

Hall finished 18 for 28 for 162 yards with two turnovers, although neither was much his fault. The first was on a pass tipped high in the air by running back Bryan Kariya. The second was a fumble caused by a crushing sack by TCU defensive end Jerry Hughes.

It was the ninth sack of the season for Hughes, who said the Frogs have been improving gradually through the first two months.

“It’s a mission,” receiver Jeremy Kerley said. “That’s what we’re on. one down, next one up.”