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Frogs Rout In-State Rival Bobcats, 56-21
Turner runs for 129 yards and three touchdowns in runaway victory.
Sept. 19, 2009
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -Joseph Turner ran for 129 yards and three touchdowns, Jerry Hughes had three sacks and No. 15 TCU won its eighth consecutive home opener, 56-21 over Texas State on Saturday night. Mistakes by the Horned Frogs (2-0) allowed their Football Championship Subdivision opponent to stay close early - giving coach Gary Patterson plenty of teaching points before going to Clemson next weekend. The Frogs, who scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter, got the expected outcome against a lower-division team on the same day Mountain West Conference foes and fellow hopeful BCS busters No. 7 BYU and No. 18 Utah lost. Turner's first TD, a 3-yard run early in the second quarter, put TCU ahead to stay 2 1/2 minutes after the Bobcats (1-1) tied the game 7-all on Frank Reddic's fourth-down plunge from a yard out. Texas State's 16-play drive started after an interception, was extended with a fake punt and aided by a pass interference penalty in the end zone. TCU led 28-14 at halftime when Turner scored on a 1-yard run in the final minute. Andy Dalton, the Frogs' third-year starting quarterback as a junior, was 18-of-24 for 222 yards and a touchdown in his 19th career victory - one more than Davey O'Brien, 10 fewer than TCU leader Sammy Baugh. Hughes had started only one game his first two seasons before being an All-American last year, when he led the nation with 15 sacks. He has 4 1/2 this season, stopping an early Texas State drive when he got to Bradley George on a third-down play.
TCU led 35-14 when Antoine Hicks scored on a 4-yard run to cap the opening drive of the second half, but Texas State wouldn't go away.
Tim Hawkins, a redshirt freshman who gets occasional snaps, came in and threw a 16-yard TD pass to Daren Dillard midway through the third quarter. The Bobcats then got the ball right back when Ron Jackson recovered Dalton's fumble at the 10 before George's pass was intercepted in the end zone by Jason Teague. Turner, who had only 13 carries, added a 6-yard TD early in the fourth quarter before scoring runs by Matthew Tucker (1 yard) and Jercell Fort (9 yards). George, the 6-foot-6 quarterback who is a 27-year-old fourth-year starter after first playing minor league baseball, was 16-of-37 for 199 yards with a 62-yard TD to Alvin Canady, who was wide open out of the backfield because of an apparent busted coverage. Canady caught the pass near midfield and sprinted untouched for the score. The Bobcats were without Karrington Bush, a 1,000-yard rusher the past two seasons, because of a knee injury sustained in their season opener two weeks earlier. Dalton was under heavy pressure when he threw up a pass that was intercepted by T.P. Miller to set up Texas State's long TD drive. The Bobcats appeared to go three-and-out and punted, with Jeremy Kerley returning it 23 yards. But TCU was penalized for lining up in the neutral zone, and punter Ben Hollis then ran for first down on fourth-and-1. |
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