We’ll cap our moving week by introducing a new team to the big stage: TCU, welcome to the Big 12.
Our former Southwest Conference teams surely remember the Horned Frogs, but it’s time to get everyone acquainted. To help me out, we’ve got College Nation blogger Andrea Adelson.
David Ubben: Andrea, you’ve been around this program the last year or so. Most fans won’t have to travel far when they make it to the newly renovated Amon G. Carter Stadium, but what can they expect for a game-day experience?
Andrea Adelson: TCU might not have a stadium as big as Texas or Oklahoma, but fans sure get loud and provide a really good home-field advantage. The Horned Frogs have won 26 of their last 27 home games, and coach Gary Patterson has lost only seven times there in his 11 seasons as head coach. The newly renovated stadium should provide even more of a home-field advantage as the student section has now been reconfigured to run goal line to goal line behind the opponent bench. Students typically get dressed up all in purple and there is one spirit organization known as the HyperFrogs that leads chants throughout the game to get everybody fired up. Word is that playing a full slate of Big 12 competition is going to spur even more excitement at games and lead to many more sellouts.
DU: I’m excited to see it. I’ve done baseball and basketball at TCU, but I’ve never been to a football game. I’ll have to end that this year. I’m definitely buying the idea that TCU’s attendance issues have been accentuated by some less-than-stellar opponents. I’m not impressed by the home record, though.
The Horned Frogs already have their hand signal ready, a signature of Texas teams from that old Southwest Conference, but what’s this move, getting reacquainted with some old friends, mean to TCU?
AA: It means everything, David. TCU was so desperate to get into an automatic qualifying conference, it agreed back in 2010 to join the Big East and then tried to tell everybody that geography did not matter and making the move was the perfect fit. The truth is, TCU always had designs on the Big 12, but the league had no interest in the Horned Frogs. Maybe that is because they were viewed as the pesky little brother that needed to be kept locked in his room. But the shifting sands of realignment made it increasingly obvious that TCU was the no-brainer choice to join the Big 12. It is no wonder TCU jumped ship for a conference closer to home without ever having played a down of football in the Big East. The Horned Frogs have finally achieved the goal set when the Southwest Conference broke up — and it took only three (and a half) league homes to get there.
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