Practice makes perfect: TCU survives on late FG
WACO, Texas — Fourth-ranked TCU had players shuffling on and off the field as the final seconds were ticking off the clock. Kicker Griffin Kell was the last one to get into place.
“That looked like chaos, but we practice it every Thursday exactly like that,” Frogs coach Sonny Dykes said.
And the Horned Frogs executed it perfectly to stay undefeated in what was no practice situation.
Kell kicked a 40-yard field goal on the game’s final play, and TCU beat Baylor 29-28 on Saturday, scoring nine points in the final 2:07 to avoid another potential playoff-busting loss on the banks of the Brazos River.
Emari Demercado scored on a 3-yard TD run to cap a 90-yard drive with 2:07 left to get the Frogs (11-0, 8-0 Big 12) within 28-26, but he was unable to pull in a pass on the 2-point conversion attempt.
After kicking deep, TCU used all three of its timeouts while forcing a three-and-out, and it got the ball back at its 31 with 1:34 left. Max Duggan had two completions before converting one third down with a 12-yard run on a quarterback draw.
Demercado was short of a clock-stopping first down on a run to the Baylor 23, going down in the center of the field with about 16 seconds left before the offensive and special teams units ran by each other. The ball was snapped at 3 seconds, and the kick by Kell, who earlier had an extra-point attempt clank off the upright, went through as time ran out.
“The great thing about that last drive, we were throwing all of our day one concepts,” Duggan said. “We were throwing easy stuff that we practice and we can do with our eyes closed, and stuff that you believe in. … So just going out there, being confident, believing it was going to happen and Griff makes a huge kick for us.”
TCU, which already had clinched a spot in the Big 12 Championship Game, hasn’t been undefeated this deep in a season since 2010, when it finished 13-0 with a Rose Bowl victory and No. 2 national ranking.
When the Frogs played at McLane Stadium for the first time in 2014, after it first opened, they lost 61-58. That was their only loss that season, and they went on to share the Big 12 title with Baylor. They were the first two teams left out of the inaugural four-team College Football Playoff.
Baylor (6-5, 4-4) was coming off a 31-3 home loss to Kansas State a week earlier, but last year’s Big 12 champions took a 28-20 lead after a pair of true freshmen scored TDs early in the fourth quarter: tight end Kelsey Johnson‘s 12-yard catch and Richard Reese‘s 1-yard run.
“It’s a tough locker room,” Baylor coach Dave Aranda said. “I told them that I wish that we, that I, could take the pain away.”
Duggan was 24-of-35 passing for 327 yards and a touchdown, and he also ran for a score while leading the Frogs with 50 yards rushing on eight carries. Kendre Miller had a rushing TD in his 12th consecutive game, a 2-yarder early in the second quarter that tied it at 14 before he got hurt early in the second half.
TCU didn’t lead until Duggan hit a wide-open Gunnar Henderson for a 26-yard touchdown with 5½ minutes left in the third quarter, one play after the two had connected for 20 yards. It was 20-14 after Kell’s missed PAT.
Baylor’s Blake Shapen was 21-of-30 passing for 269 yards and a score, while Craig “Sqwirl” Williams ran for 112 yards. Monaray Baldwin had six catches for 123 yards, including a 74-yard gain on third-and-11 that set up Reese’s TD with 9:47 left.
“For it to end that way really hurt,” Williams said.
THE TAKEAWAY
TCU: Another comeback for the Frogs, who last month overcame double-digit deficits in the second half against Oklahoma State and Kansas State. They never faltered after several players dealt with flu-like symptoms during the week, and they finished the game without leading receiver Quentin Johnston and Miller.
Baylor: The Bears never really had much trouble moving the ball, piling up 501 total yards, 232 on the ground. On their opening drive, they had 56 yards rushing — twice as much Texas had the whole game against TCU a week earlier. But they missed a chance to take a halftime lead when Shapen’s pass was intercepted in the end zone by Bud Clark with 4 seconds left.
POLL IMPLICATIONS
TCU will stay in the top four of the AP poll Sunday, and should still be in the all-important top four of the new CFP rankings on Tuesday.
UP NEXT
TCU ends the regular season at home against Iowa State next Saturday.
Baylor is at Texas on Friday.
The Arizona Diamondbacks placed left fielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. on the 10-day injured list due to a torn right ACL injured the previous night in a 7-5 loss to the Texas Rangers.
Gurriel was hurt in the sixth inning after he jumped awkwardly out of the way to avoid center fielder Blaze Alexander, who made a diving catch on a line drive by Rowdy Tellez for the third out of the inning.
Alexander was playing his first game in center field as a big leaguer.
Gurriel stayed on the ground for several minutes while medical staff attended to him. The 31-year-old eventually got up and walked to a cart before being driven off the field.
Additional tests confirmed the torn ACL.
Gurriel is batting .248 this season with 19 homers and 80 RBIs.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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Adam Rittenberg
While Dabo Swinney isn’t inflating LSU‘s grade for beating his team in Saturday’s season opener, Brian Kelly is ready to give the Clemson coach an incomplete for his evaluation.
Both coaches weighed in Tuesday on how LSU’s 17-10 win at Clemson should be viewed. After trailing 10-3 at halftime, LSU outscored Clemson 14-0 in the second half and finished with significant edges in both total yards (354-261) and first downs (25-13).
LSU rose six spots to No. 3 in the AP Top 25 poll Tuesday, while Clemson dropped four spots to No. 8.
“It was a helluva game, down to the last play,” Swinney said in his weekly news conference. “Right out of the gate. It’s like getting the final exam [on] Day 1 of class. They made a 65; we made a 58. Neither one of us were great.”
Kelly had not won a season opener at LSU before Saturday, and the victory was his first with the Tigers against an AP top-5 opponent.
“I thought we dominated them in the second half, so he’s really a really good grader for giving himself a 58, or he’s a really hard grader on us,” Kelly said in his news conference when told about Swinney’s comment.
“Or he didn’t see the second half, which, that might be the case. He might not have wanted to see the second half.”
Kelly added that LSU is moving on to this week’s game against Louisiana Tech.
“Clemson is a darn good football team,” Kelly said. “That’s a top-notch team, and they’re going to be a team in the hunt for [the] playoff picture. We hope we are, too. But it was only one game. So I don’t know if he’s a hard grader or an easy grader, but I like the way that we played in the second half.”
Clemson visits LSU to open the 2026 season.
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