Howdy from the Fort Worth Stockyards, Frog fans. Ryder Galloway here, leaning on a fence rail, boots dusty, pressed shirt still somehow perfect. I grew up around cattle and ended up in an office tower downtown, and I still explain defense the old way. A great defense is a great cattle drive. Everybody rides their lane, nobody lets a steer slip through the gap, and the whole herd ends up exactly where you wanted it.
And on Saturday night in Waco, friends, TCU's defense ran the cleanest drive in Texas.
Yeehaw, that's a turnover. Several of them, actually.
Part 1: Seventeen Points and a Fence That Wouldn't Break
TCU beat Baylor 17-6 at McLane Stadium. We're 3-3 and 1-2 in the Big 12, and we snapped Baylor's four-game winning streak in its own house. I'll admit, the first half of this season was rough. We started 0-2 in the Big 12 for the first time since 2013. If you want to know who's to blame for that, I've got a theory, and it starts with a D and ends with "allas."
But this one felt good. Jaden Craig threw for 294 yards and two touchdowns. He put us ahead to stay with a 25-yard touchdown pass to Ed Small in the first quarter. Then, in the opening minute of the second half, Craig hit Jordan Dwyer on a 67-yard catch-and-run. On the very next snap, he threw an 8-yard touchdown to Ka'Morreun Pimpton, and we led 14-6. Nate McCashland added a 25-yard field goal. Dwyer finished with six catches for 150 yards, and Small had seven for 91.
Now let's talk about the herd. Baylor's quarterback completed 22 of 53 passes. The Bears put together three straight first-half drives of at least 12 plays each and came away with two field goals and a miss. That's a cattle drive where the steers walk 12 miles and end up right back in the pen. Koron Hayward had three of our four sacks. Jamel Johnson intercepted a pass. Kylin Jackson stripped the ball loose late in the first half to get it right back after a turnover of our own. Baylor finished with a season-low 310 yards.
According to AP, it was our highest-scoring game against a Power Four opponent this season. I'll be honest about that too. The offense has some catching up to do.
Part 2: The Mountaineers Ride Into Cowtown
Saturday, noon Eastern, 11 a.m. here in Cowtown, on ESPN2. West Virginia (4-3) at TCU (3-3) at Amon G. Carter Stadium.
What the Mountaineers Bring
I'll tip my hat first. West Virginia can move the ball. It gains 497.1 yards a game, eighth in FBS, and it runs for 272.4 a game, fifth. Cam Cook has 833 rushing yards and seven touchdowns. Last week Mike Hawkins Jr. threw for a career-high 464 yards, three touchdowns and ran for two more in a 45-42 win over Cincinnati. Jack Cassidy kicked a 35-yard field goal as time ran out.
Now, the rest of the herd report.
West Virginia never led that game until the final kick. The Mountaineers give up 483.9 yards a game, 137th in FBS. They give up 310.1 passing yards a game, 138th. Folks, I've seen gates on a ranch hold better than that. AP noted that West Virginia's last four games have all topped 1,000 combined yards. Cincinnati outgained them 622-598 and still lost. They give up 34 points a game, 130th. And before beating Cincinnati, they'd lost three straight.
Last season, per CollegeFootballData, West Virginia went 4-8. We went 9-4.
What the Frogs Bring
Our defense allows 12.2 points a game, third in FBS. It allows 264.2 yards a game, seventh. Opponents convert only 30.2% on third down against us, 13th in FBS. Our red zone defense ranks third. And here's my most beloved stat in the whole state of Texas: TCU has held every opponent this season to 21 points or fewer.
Hayward has 4.5 sacks. Hudson Hooper leads us with 32 tackles. Craig has 1,694 yards and 10 touchdowns. Ed Small has 35 catches for 494 yards. Our passing game ranks 20th in FBS, and West Virginia's pass defense ranks 138th. You don't need a finance degree to see that one adds up.
The Honest Brand on the Hide
I don't fib. Our running game averages 110 yards a game, 125th in FBS, and we score 24 points a game, 95th. We're 98th in penalty yards. And the history isn't all ours. West Virginia leads the series 8-6, according to CollegeFootballData, and it won its last three trips to Amon G. Carter, in 2019, 2021 and 2023. We did win the last meeting, 23-17 in Morgantown last season. So keep the herd tight, keep the flags down and make Hawkins throw against the best defense he'll see all year.
Cowtown vs. Morgantown
Fort Worth. Fort Worth started in 1849 as an army outpost on a bluff over the Trinity River, and it's been known ever since as "where the West begins." We're Cowtown, a historic center of the Texas Longhorn cattle trade, and down at the Stockyards, they still run cattle drives through the streets twice a day, weather permitting. Today Fort Worth is the 10th-most populous city in the United States, with an estimated 1,028,117 people, and one of the fastest-growing cities in the country.
And our stadium has history. Amon G. Carter Stadium hosted its first game on Oct. 11, 1930, and TCU beat Arkansas. The Frogs won national championships in 1935 and 1938 under Dutch Meyer. Even our mascot is tough. The Texas horned lizard can squirt an aimed stream of blood from the corners of its eyes as far as 5 feet to confuse predators. Try to top that, Mountaineers.
Morgantown. Morgantown is a pretty town on the Monongahela River with 30,347 people, according to the 2020 census. Fort Worth has more than 30 Morgantowns. And the town has a driverless people-mover system that opened in 1975, three years behind schedule. Friends, in Fort Worth we move people the old-fashioned way: on a horse, on time.
Now, West Virginia's beloved song, "Take Me Home, Country Roads." It's been played at every West Virginia home pregame since 1972, and it's one of the state's official anthems. But according to the songwriters' own story, the idea for that title came while they were driving along Clopper Road in Montgomery County, Maryland. So the official song of West Virginia was dreamed up in Maryland. In Fort Worth, we write our cowboy songs in Texas.
When their stadium opened in 1980, John Denver landed on the field in a helicopter, sang "Country Roads" and then immediately flew away. I respect the efficiency. Even John Denver didn't stick around Morgantown for the second verse. And the stadium design? It was inspired by Jack Trice Stadium at Iowa State. So the Mountaineers play in a building inspired by Iowa, singing a song inspired by Maryland. Somehow I'm sure this is Dallas's fault.
The Last Roundup
Here's the drive. West Virginia has a big-play offense and a defense that ranks near the bottom of FBS. TCU has a top-three scoring defense, a quarterback who just threw for 294 yards and a home crowd that's ready to make some noise. Keep every steer in its lane, make the Mountaineers earn every yard and send them back up the country road a little earlier than they planned.
Yeehaw, that's a turnover. Go Frogs.
My call: TCU Horned Frogs 34, West Virginia Mountaineers 22.