The Horned Frogs football team of Texas Christian University takes to the road on Saturday to face the unbeaten University of Kansas Jayhawks. TCU is coming off a huge win against Oklahoma, while the Jayhawks narrowly defeated Iowa State, earning the club its first AP ranking since 2009.
After more than a decade of being one of the more irrelevant teams in the Big 12, head coach Lance Leipold has the Jayhawks off to the best start of a season since Mark Mangino was stalking the sidelines. Mangino’s final season at Kansas was in 2009, when the Jayhawks opened the season at 5-0, then lost the final seven games of the season. Kansas has only recorded five wins in a season seven times since joining the Big 12 in 1996.
TCU has also seen a serious drought since last being ranked, though, for the Horned Frogs, it has only been since 2019 when the team was briefly ranked at No.25. TCU enters Saturday’s game ranked at No.17 in the AP poll.
The Horned Frogs have not completed a season as a ranked team since 2017 under Gary Patterson when they were placed at No. 9 in both the Coaches Poll and the AP Ranking. TCU has just three seasons as a ranked football team since joining the Big 12 Conference in 2012.
Through the early part of the season, both TCU and Kansas have displayed a tremendous ability to adapt the offense and score points. With Max Duggan under center, the Horned Frogs are averaging 549.5 yards per game, the second-most in the country. The Frogs have put up 50 points on two squads this year including the 55-24 drubbing of Oklahoma last week.
A big reason the TCU offense is scoring as a team possessed is the play of the defense. Linebacker Johnny Hodges leads the team with 25 total tackles, while fellow linebacker Dee Winters already has 3.5 sacks on the season to lead the team. Opposing offenses are averaging only 22 points against a predatory TCU defense that comes into the game with four interceptions.
The Jayhawks’ offense is no stranger to scoring this season, either. The unit ranks 12th in the nation with a per-game points average of 41.6. Jalon Daniels won the starting quarterback job this season and has been electrifying, throwing for 983 yards and 11 touchdowns with only one interception. The dual-threat QB also has 329 yards on the ground, adding another five touchdowns to his season total.
The Jayhawks’ offense has put up big numbers this season but also has been forced to do so several times. In Week 2, the Jayhawks went into overtime against West Virginia with the score knotted at 42. West Virginia QB JT Daniels engineered a scoring drive to take the lead at 49-42. With one drive to score, Daniels tossed a pick-six that sealed the Jayhawks’ victory, 55-42.
The two teams have played 36 times since 1942. TCU holds the overall series record at 25-9-4, including a 9-1 TCU win record in the last ten matches.
The game will kick off on October 8 from Lawrence, Kansas, at 11:00 a.m. CDT on FS1.
