TCU’s Third-Quarter Change of Pace Put Baylor Behind the Math

TCU needed 44 seconds to score its third-quarter touchdown. Its next scoring drive took 6:26 and ended with a field goal. Both possessions made the Fort Worth program’s 17-6 win at Baylor more secure, through very different uses of the football.

At halftime, TCU led 7-6. The score reflected a first half with more friction than rhythm. Jaden Craig’s 25-yard touchdown pass to Ed Small had supplied the Frogs’ only touchdown, while Baylor’s Rhett Armstrong answered with field goals of 39 and 32 yards.

Craig threw an interception late in the second quarter, and Koron Hayward had already forced a fumble by Baylor quarterback DJ Lagway near the TCU 20.

Then came the quick answer.

TCU opened the third quarter with an incomplete pass. On the next snap, Craig found Jordan Dwyer for 67 yards, taking the ball to the Baylor 8. One play later, Craig hit Ka’Morreun Pimpton for the 8-yard touchdown. Three plays, 75 yards and 44 seconds: TCU had moved from a 7-6 edge to a 14-6 lead with most of the third quarter still to play.

Baylor’s response lasted five plays. Lagway connected with Gavin Freeman for 21 yards, Pendergrass gained a yard on the ground, and Hayward then dropped Lagway for a 6-yard loss. An incomplete pass preceded the punt.

TCU’s next possession could hardly have looked more different. It covered 73 yards in 14 plays and took 6:26, beginning at the TCU 20 and ending with Nate McCashland’s 25-yard field goal. Landon Walker opened the march with runs of 11 and 7 yards.

Craig added an 11-yard scramble, and completions to A. Theus, Small and Kari Ashley carried the Frogs into Baylor territory. An unnecessary-roughness penalty also moved TCU across midfield.

The possession reached the Baylor 7, then bogged down. That did not make it a failure. McCashland’s kick created the 17-6 margin TCU needed, and the long march forced Baylor’s defense to handle 14 separate snaps before the scoreboard moved again. Baylor now needed more than one scoring possession to take the lead.

The two drives also exposed the shape of TCU’s offense. Craig finished 21-for-36 for 294 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. Dwyer caught six passes for 150 yards, including the 67-yard strike that changed the third quarter, while Small added seven receptions for 91 yards and a touchdown. The passing game produced chunk yardage and sustained possessions despite the negative plays TCU also absorbed.

The ground game was another matter. TCU finished with 33 rushing yards on 30 attempts, or 1.1 yards per rush. Walker’s two early gains on the long third-quarter drive helped, but one productive sequence does not erase the broader problem. If the explosive throws disappear, TCU will need more than occasional scrambles to keep drives from becoming short affairs.

That concern did not prevent the defense from exploiting the scoreboard situation. Baylor’s remaining third-quarter possessions ended with a punt, another punt and Jamel Johnson’s interception.

In the fourth quarter, the Bears drove to the TCU 35 before turning the ball over on downs, then mounted a longer final push that reached the TCU 18 before penalties pushed it backward and a fourth-down incompletion ended it at the TCU 37.

Hayward supplied three of TCU’s four sacks, while Lagway completed 22 of 53 passes for 256 yards with no touchdowns and one interception. Baylor still collected 23 first downs and 310 total yards, enough to keep the game uncomfortable. But the Bears could not convert that movement into a second-half point.

That is what TCU’s third-quarter contrast protected: a defense allowed to surrender yards without surrendering the touchdown Baylor needed. The field-goal drive was especially useful because it added points while taking 6:26 out of Baylor’s available evening. TCU could not keep repeating that possession, as its later punts showed.

For one stretch after halftime, though, its offense offered the defense both a larger margin and a longer rest.

Sources

ESPN: box score and play-by-play

TCU: official game report