The story line of the defending national champion #9 Texas Christian team
travelling to Chicago to play a strong #8 Notre Dame team that lost
heartbreaking games to Clemson and Stanford should have been that the
winner would be a dark horse
candidate to stir things up in the college football tournament.
Instead, the suspension of TCU star QB Trevone Boykin days before the
game stole the headlines. Certainly, taking Boykin away from the Horned
Frogs and having to play in December-y Chicago would
provide an immense hurdle for TCU.
And
it certainly was typical December Saturday in Chicago, but at 30
degrees and no precipitation, it was neither a frozen tundra nor pelting
rain (that Louisville and Northern Illinois experienced during a First
Round game in recent years).
But Notre Dame seemed on their game early while TCU played to the
script of being out of sorts. The first quarter saw the Irish take the
lead on a Josh Adams 3 yard TD run, followed in the second quarter by a
DeShone Kizer 1 yard TD run, and Notre Dame was
in 100% control with a 14-0 lead at the half.
TCU
finally hit a field goal in the third quarter, but when Kizer hit Chris
Brown on a 4 yard TD pass, the Notre Dame 21-3 lead seemed as safe as a
pot of gold at the rainbow’s end. Even when TCU QB Bram Kohlhausen
tossed a 26 yard TD
pass to Jaelan Austin, it seemed like a temporary blip on a dominant ND
defensive performance. However in the waning moments of the third
quarter, Kohlhausen’s 2 yard TD run brought TCU within 21-17, and
nervousness began to bubble up among the Irish faithful.
But
when the fourth quarter scoring started with a Will Fuller 81 yard TD
reception pass from Kizer, the ND fans certainly had to think luck was
on their side, with a 28-17 lead. But TCU answered with a Jaden
Oberkrom 34 yard field goal,
and later when the Horned Frogs’ Aaron Green scored from two yards out
to narrow the lead to 28-27, the Soldier Field crowd knew nails would be
bitten in the final minutes. With 3:08 to play, Oberkrom hit a 22 yard
field goal, and TCU took their first lead,
30-28. An ineffective Irish offense never came close to putting ND in a
position to score, and Texas Christian’s hope to repeat as champions
were alive, as the Irish’s hopes of a spoiler role were dashed.
Texas Christian moves on the Orange Bowl to face the top seeded, undefeated Clemson Tigers.
No comments:
Post a Comment