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The Frogs will be looking for a bounce-back win against Colorado after suffering a last-minute road loss in Arizona last weekend. Courtesy TCU Athletics

For all my gamblers, please accept my sincerest apologies for my confidence in TCU’s ability to win Friday night’s game. I invite you to send receipt of all gambling losses: care of Kendal Briles, at 3-1 Can’t Make Adjustments Lane, Fort Worth, TX.

Friday was weird. Aside side from playing college football on a high-school night, Tempe received nearly 2 inches of rain from monsoon storms, which closed tailgates and nearly postponed the game entirely. The playing surface was exactly as you’d expect from real grass forced to grow in the desert: clinging to life. TCU athletes especially struggled for footing all night as grass broke off in chunks underneath their cleats. That said, the early sledding was smooth. The Frogs did nothing with their first drive — which, sadly, we’ve come to expect — but scored on their second. This was the result of what has been a solid connection between Josh Hoover (#10) and Jordan Dwyer (#7), plus rushes from Trent Battle (#6), who trotted to the end zone on a 13-yard scamper.

The Sun Devils followed up with a missed field goal (one of two misfires in the evening), and the Frogs scored again. ASU was optimistically aggressive during their next drive and tried a fourth-down conversion on their own 38, which Andy Avalos’ defense stonewalled, awarding Hoover and company a short field, which they weren’t able to convert for more than 3.

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That’s when everything changed. It took the Devils only three plays to break a 57-yard reception for a touchdown, and from that point on, things just felt ominous, though the score looked fine at the time. I’m not sure if I was the only one, but the existential dread usually reserved for Sunday night before the work week washed over me full force: “We are about to blow this, and I know it.”

Eric McAlister (#1), who absolutely terrorized SMU the week before, attempted to play on Friday but quickly left the game due to an existing lower-body injury. Kevorian Barnes (#2) still has not returned after what appeared to be a hamstring strain against Abilene Christian. Those two players are the tip of the spear as it pertains to weapons for Hoover and Briles, and without them, it didn’t take the Arizonans long to adjust their defensive scheme to shut down TCU.

Football at its core is a game of allocating resources, and ASU didn’t have to overly commit to stymie the Frogs’ rushing attack after the first few series. In the end, the Frogs accumulated only 50 rushing yards through 15 attempts, with Battle and Jeremy Payne (#26) sharing the load. Once the box score is adjusted for negative plays and sacks, the total was 12 yards from 24 attempts, but to be fair, there were six sacks to account for, so we’ll just call it “terrible” instead of “miserable.”

Through the air was better, I guess. Hoover tossed for 242 yards on 32 attempts but didn’t have a passing touchdown and was picked off twice, the final one to seal the game when a comeback was still technically possible. I won’t outright blame Hoover for having an awful game. It wasn’t his best. He coughed up the most un-clutch of fumbles on a sack late and threw a bad interception to finish, though his first INT was a ball wrestled from the hands of Dwyer, who was close to scoring.

The blame falls primarily on Briles, who still can’t design a run scheme to account for the personnel he actually has. If Hoover had the wheels of ASU quarterback Sam Leavitt (#10), things might work, but he doesn’t. Five linemen, who didn’t play well at all on Friday, trying to run-block four or five Sun Devils on stretch plays and inside zone just doesn’t work against a penetrating defense that doesn’t respect you. And there was no adjustment available because, schematically, the O is just bland and deficient.

With the run game out to lunch, that left Hoover to contend with seven in coverage while a solid pass rush collapsed his pocket repeatedly, without his most physically imposing receiver. With Barnes out, the Frogs’ backfield is average, and the offensive line is the same or worse, so it might be time to include a sniffer-back, tight end, or additional blocking back if anything is going to happen in the ground game against a decent defense. And State has an objectively good one based on the evidence through four games.

Hoover did cobble together one more scoring drive thanks in part to spitfire Joseph Manjack IV (#14), who was the leading receiver with eight grabs and 83 yards. He also threw a 17-yard pass off a trick play and finished with double the quarterback rating of Hoover. Big tight end DJ Rogers (#0) was the second-best performer with four catches for 60 yards and the longest single reception of the evening.

The most telling statistic might be the number 3, which is how many yards the Frog offense netted in the fourth quarter while accounting for sacks and negative plays, as well as the quantity of turnovers lost. The 17-0 lead that the Frogs built late in the second quarter lasted until past the 2-minute timeout in the fourth, and the Devils didn’t take the lead until there were only 74 clicks left on the clock.

Defensively, this one is a quagmire. TCU gave up 500 yards exactly but were also cursed yet again by an unproductive offense possessing the ball 10 fewer minutes than their opponents. Leavitt could be rushed but rarely sacked, and he punished rushers who abandoned lanes on passing downs.

Despite unbridled productivity from the Sun Devils, allowing only 27 points off 500 yards is gritty despite deficiencies, and fans should have hope for the rest of the season, especially with how feisty purple defenders were in the red zone. Safety Bud Clark (#21) dropped an early interception that could have reasonably netted a touchdown or given the offense an additional opportunity before ASU had successfully adjusted their defensive scheme.

There were some ticky-tacky penalties that gave the Devils second chances when the game could have been swayed (though I mostly thought the officiating was decent). Frog defenders did recover a fumble and turned the Devils over on downs twice. Arizona State wide receiver Jordyn Tyson (#0 — a native of Allen) was too big during clutch moments and scored the tying touchdown on fourth down. Tyson, who might be the first receiver taken in the next draft and is a projected Top-5 pick, hauled in eight passes for 126 yards and two touchdowns, a McAlister-esque performance against the Frogs.

In many ways, the Sun Devils remind me of TCU from 2022: an extremely mobile quarterback and an NFL-bound wide receiver enjoy giving up early leads and battling from behind while leaving their fan base grasping for whiskey and baby aspirin but with a much better defense.

The Frogs understandably dropped out of the rankings this week with ASU essentially replacing them, and Fort Worth looks forward to hosting Coach Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes, who are coming off an almost identical loss to BYU. The Buffs built a 14-0 lead on the Cougars which was lost in less dramatic fashion but still a close 24-21 loss in which their offense turned stone cold and couldn’t convert during big moments. Both teams will be aching for a bounce-back win, but health will be paramount for the Frogs, both on the offensive line and with their two notably absent offensive weapons. To add insult to those injuries, while Hoover struggled with his worst game in a year, former Frog Chandler Morris was leading the Virginia Cavaliers to a monster upset of eighth-ranked Florida State just hours earlier.

Hopefully, over the next eight days, Briles will focus on duct-taping a reliable running game together that Hoover can relinquish some pressure to, but he’s had two years, so I’m not holding my breath.

TCU opens as a 14.5-point favorite at home for Saturday night’s game, and I wouldn’t even consider taking the Frogs with a line that large. The most pressing question for these purple warriors is how they respond to adversity. Despite losing on Friday, the Frogs have trailed only by a combined 9 minutes and 13 seconds of game time this season. ASU was the first one-possession affair this squad has encountered, and they didn’t handle it well. But the momentum had swung away from them for almost two consecutive quarters. Overwhelmingly, we as fans should be most critical of how the coaching staff prepares to make better adjustments against the remainder of the schedule, which still sets up well for TCU as these types of losses tend to be less damaging earlier in the season.

Saturday night’s “blackout” is an evaluation of coaching and mindset. Oddsmakers really nailed the spread against Arizona State, and if they’re right about Colorado, TCU should be able to win comfortably, especially if Fort Worth fanatics want to feel good about anything remaining on the Frogs’ Big 12 slate. Hoover needs some confidence back, but that will come from improved offensive line play and a productive rushing attack. At Amon G. Carter at this point in the season, it’s time to find those things, or we could suffer a repeat of 2023’s five-win season.

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