The matchup between No. 6 TCU and No. 7 Kansas State was arguably the biggest game on a day loaded with big games. There were huge playoff implications, and the Horned Frogs made an emphatic statement en route to a 41-20 smashing of the Wildcats.
Entering this game, Kansas State was only allowing 3.14 yards per carry, good for 11th in the country. The Frogs did a bit better than that, ripping off long run after long run, piling up 338 yards on 47 carries as a team. Even without starting running back B.J. Catalon, Trevone Boykin and Aaron Green seemed to handle things just fine, each going over 100 yards on the day. Green led with 171 yards on only 18 carries, and had this outstanding 65 yard run to put an exclamation point on things for the Frogs:
GIF credit: FOX
There wasn't much positive news for Kansas State. With two losses, they're essentially eliminated from College Football Playoff contention, and they're now staring down a tough tiebreaker scenario in the Big 12 with a game against Baylor still to come. However, Tyler Lockett had a great night, catching 11 balls for 196 yards and a touchdown. He set a new school record for receiving yards with 3,062, passing the old record set by his father Kevin.
Three things we learned
1. TCU's Playoff resume is as good as anyone's. The Frogs now boast wins over Kansas State, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and a surprisingly good Minnesota, and their only loss is a heartbreaker to a very good Baylor team. Outside of Mississippi State, they have arguably as good a resume as anyone in the country. And now, with Auburn losing and Alabama and Oregon with tough games on their hands, it's not unreasonable to think the Frogs could slide from No. 6 into the top 4 of the College Football Playoff rankings.
2. The Big 12 is up for grabs. Speaking of playoff resumes, someone from the Big 12 is going to get a huge boost from getting the conference title pinned to the top of theirs. With Kansas State finally losing a conference game, there's now a three-way tie atop the conference standings between TCU, Baylor and Kansas State. TCU holds the tiebreaker over Kansas State, and Baylor holds it over TCU.
For your reading pleasure, here are the Big 12 tiebreaker procedures.
3. Playing close finally caught up with Kansas State. The thing about Kansas State is they're pretty good at everything, but not necessarily great at anything. They're extremely well coached, and in most cases, that's enough for them to pick up wins in tight spots. However, they ran up against a better team tonight, and the cracks in the foundation were visible. Once TCU got players moving in space, the mismatches were glaring. It's tough to think they were ever going to make it all the way through the season with only one loss.