TCU holds off Michigan for College Football Playoff semifinal win
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GLENDALE, Ariz. — The College Football Playoff has delivered so many duds that it makes you forget it can deliver a classic like this.
The first of two semifinals on Saturday was a staggering, stupendous show that looked as if it were over at halftime, then looked finished in the third quarter and once more in the fourth, but never quite was — until the end. Again and again, Michigan fought back. And again and again, TCU kept the Wolverines at arm’s length.
At the end, purple confetti rained down on State Farm Stadium after TCU scored a monumental 51-45 upset over Michigan in an utterly mad, completely drunk and wildly brilliant Fiesta Bowl. The Horned Frogs (13-1) will play Georgia, 42-41 winners over Ohio State in the Peach Bowl, a week from Monday for a chance at their third national championship, and their first since an 11-0 season in 1938.
“The winner,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said, “was football.”
The Horned Frogs dominated the first half, going up 21-6, but victory did not come easily. Starting in the third quarter, the game turned into a roaring festival of points, with TCU successfully holding at bay comeback attempt after comeback attempt by Michigan via its own offensive prowess and the brilliance of quarterback Max Duggan. All hell broke loose, over and over.
“For us to battle back and kind of avenge that [Big 12 championship game] loss and be able to win this one tonight against a great opponent and have the opportunity to go play for a national championship, I think just means so much,” Duggan said, “to the guys up here, the guys in the locker room, our coaching staff, our fans, our university.”
Michigan (13-1) pulled within 41-38 two plays into the fourth quarter after Emari Demercado’s fumble set up a Roman Wilson score and a Ronnie Bell two-point conversion. The Horned Frogs punched right back, though, with Quentin Johnston taking a crossing route 76 yards to the house to extend the lead to 10. Griffin Kell’s field goal increased the lead to 13.
The Wolverines mounted one last scrambling attempt at a comeback. J.J. McCarthy led the Wolverines on a nine-play, 56-yard drive, ending in a Wilson touchdown, to bring the score to 51-45. McCarthy got the ball one more time, this time with 52 seconds to go at his own 25, before TCU finally stopped him.
“Can’t let them score, that’s the message right there,” TCU defensive back Bud Clark told The Post. “Can’t let them score, [get] first downs, none of that. Stop ’em.”
Kee’Yon Stewart’s fourth-and-10 tackle on Colston Loveland was reviewed for targeting, giving this game one last hold-your-breath moment before TCU could finally celebrate. Cigar smoke filled the Horned Frogs’ locker room as their players lauded each other and their quarterback.
“He makes us play harder,” receiver Taye Barber told The Post of Duggan, who finished the game with 225 yards and two touchdowns through the air and 57 yards and two more scores on the ground. “The way he puts himself on the line every week, week in, week out, it just makes us want to play for him more and just do our job better.”
“When everybody’s down, he’s the one who gets us up,” Clark said. “Whether it be with a play, whether it be talking to us or something different.”
Duggan is now set to live on forever as the quarterback who got TCU the best win in its history. As for head coach Sonny Dykes, he has written a stunning legacy in just one year in charge, taking the Horned Frogs from 5-7 last season to the national title game.
Even this season, as they started to rack up wins, it was easy to overlook a team that seemed to rely on comebacks and scored few emphatic victories against a weak Big 12 conference.
No one, though, will look past TCU anymore.
“When you are a small private school, you’ve got to fight for [credibility],” Dykes said. “It’s just the way it is. Michigan’s got 750,000 alumni. We got 75,000.”
It was the 75,000 who went home happy on Saturday. Even after a madcap third quarter ended with TCU fumbling the ball away, setting Michigan up to get within a score — and even after Wilson got the Wolverines within that score — the Horned Frogs stayed calm and collected.
Fifteen minutes of game clock later, TCU breathed a little lighter, its mettle confirmed.
Michigan came in as a heavy favorite, the conventional wisdom being that the better-tested Wolverines could use their physical run game to push around TCU. Despite that perceived physical edge, it was Michigan that got pushed around all game long.
“I guess Michigan wasn’t too physical,” backup tight end Alex Honig told The Post in TCU’s postgame locker room, stogie in hand.
Asked who brought the cigars, wideout Curtis Raymond III smiled wide.
“Someone who was prepared,” he said.
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