They met their finish in extra time after Duggan was stopped simply in need of the objective line on a second-down run and Kendre Miller was stuffed simply brief on consecutive runs up the center, the ultimate one coming when linebacker Daniel Inexperienced and nostril guard Eli Huggins met Miller within the gap, sending the Kansas State protection dancing off the sphere.
On the following possession, Kansas State picked up one first down earlier than kicker Ty Zentner’s 31-yard subject objective bisected the uprights, kicking off a jubilant Kansas State celebration and leaving T.C.U. to plead its case to the committee.
“Our hope is to not should depend on a magnificence contest,” T.C.U. Coach Sonny Dykes mentioned. “Our hope is to kick the door down and that we’re Huge 12 champs and there’s no dialogue about it.”
There has all the time been one thing unsatisfactory about how the school soccer season ends. Within the 1990 season, Georgia Tech and Colorado break up the nationwide championship, after which Washington and Miami did the identical the subsequent yr, adopted by Michigan and Nebraska six years later. That begot the Bowl Championship Sequence, pitting the 2 top-ranked groups towards one another.
That gave approach to a four-team playoff starting with the 2014 season.
In actual fact, the semifinals have hardly ever been compelling. 9 of the 16 whole semifinal matchups have been determined by 20 or extra factors — and solely two, Georgia’s double-overtime defeat of Oklahoma after the 2017 season and Clemson’s comeback towards Ohio State in 2019, have gone to the wire.
It’s uncommon that the playoff features a plucky interloper.
Cincinnati acquitted itself effectively final yr in a loss to Alabama, and although T.C.U. is a member of a extra august convention, the Huge 12, there are nonetheless uncooked emotions from the primary yr of the playoff when the Horned Frogs’ solely defeat — 61-58 at Baylor — was sufficient to maintain them out of the playoff. Baylor, whose solely loss was at West Virginia, was additionally frozen out — partially as a result of the Huge 12 didn’t have a championship sport.
“The Huge 12 in a special place because it was then,” Dykes mentioned. “I feel they’re going to see it totally different, however on the identical time you don’t know. I’m involved clearly, however I think about the committee.”