Saddle Secured
November 20, 2017
Happy Monday!
I’m pushing the schedule up a day this week due to the Thanksgiving holiday. I hope all of you and your families are able to enjoy the best of everything Thanksgiving has to offer. Slow yourselves down. This week sometime, take 30 minutes to stop and be silent and think of all the blessings in your life. Turn that cell phone off and think. And give thanks.
The regular-season finish line is within sight. Amazing how fast the season goes. Baylor is playing better, especially on offense. More on the Bears on Wednesday.
Lubbock was windy, dusty and cold. The usual strange things that happen in Lubbock never showed up in this game. Must’ve been the weather. It was blowing hard out of the north with gusts to 45 mph. TCU Director of Athletic Video Services Mike Maples told me it was the toughest conditions in which his crew has ever shot a game. I believe it – up on top of the north scoreboard, the video crew looked like those wind-whipped reporters on The Weather Channel with their pants flapping back and forth! Keep control of the camera!
The Frogs were in control from the start. Maybe the strangest thing coming out of Saturday was that Tech began the game with a 21-play drive. 21! In all my years of watching football, I’ve never seen that at any level. And Tech got just three points out of it — their only points of the game. Secondly, the Frogs and Red Raiders had just one possession each in the first quarter. Time of possession was split exactly down the middle: 30 minutes on the dot for each team.
I’ve never seen that, either.
Aside from the Shawn Robinson show, the biggest thing on display for TCU was defensive depth. The Frogs did without safety Niko Small, linebackers Travin Howard and Montrel Wilson, and during the game, Ridwan Issahaku went down. Still, the Frogs stifled Tech’s offense by rushing just three all game long and held Tech quarterback Nic Shimonek to 137 yards passing on the day. The Red Raider scoring output of three points was a flat tire compared to their per-game average of 38 coming in to the game. TCU continued the second half lockdown — the Frogs have not allowed a point in the second half in five straight games.
Saddle secured.
Tonight, Jamie Dixon’s Frogs go for their fourth win of the year against Omaha out of the Summit League. Join us at “The Scholl” tonight at 8.
After the game, I’m off to fix the cornbread dressing — I love that stuff. And pumpkin pie, too!
Talk to you Wednesday. Until then,
Kick ‘Em High!
About Extra Points with John Denton
John Denton has been the color analyst for the TCU Sports Network from IMG since 1988. A former standout for the Horned Frog football team, Denton went from walk-on to a four-year lettermen as a kicker and punter for the Purple and White from 1981-84 and completed his career at the 1984 Bluebonnet Bowl. Shown here with his former coach, the late Jim Wacker, Denton currently serves as the Associate Athletics Director for Athletics Alumni Relations & Executive Director of the Block T Association.
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