KU comes up just short in upset bid, falls 23-17 at TCU

Did you let yourself believe?

Did you believe that it was possible, that this could be real life, that the greatest upset in Big 12 history was playing out on the green grass of Amon G. Carter Stadium on Saturday afternoon, and that was actually the Kansas football program, at the center of it all?

Did you let yourself believe when the Kansas defense procured another fourth-down stop, or when safety Fish Smithson snuffed out a scoring drive with an interception, or when the KU offense out-gained No. 13 TCU, the second-best offense in the country, during a deadlocked first half?

Did you believe when KU quarterback Ryan Willis, a true freshman, hit Tyler Patrick for a 10-yard touchdown on fourth-down, slicing the TCU lead to six points with 6:19 to play?

Did you believe when TCU starting quarterback Trevone Boykin, a bonafide Heisman contender, went down in the first half with an ankle injury and Horned Frogs coach Gary Patterson was forced to ride with backups? Did you think that this was real? Did you think that this was possible, that maybe a 46-point underdog that had lost 37 straight games on the road could hang with a team that spent the first two months of this season firmly in the national-title hunt?

Smithson, a junior safety, let himself believe in the first quarter, more than three hours before TCU would register one final stop and escape with a 23-17 victory, thrusting the Jayhawks to an 0-10 record with two games left. The truth is, though, almost every Jayhawk had a different moment. Senior running back Taylor Cox said he believed earlier this week, when the KU coaching staff broke down the one-on-one personnel matchups with TCU. Sophomore linebacker Joe Dineen had this feeling around halftime, he said, or maybe a little after.

“It’s in the back of your mind,” Dineen said. “It’s almost a confidence boost. Because you know you can play with them. What we were doing was working.”

Maybe you were crazy if you did believe. Maybe this football game on Saturday afternoon was never going to end any other way than this — TCU escaping a desperate and determined Kansas team in front of a half-empty stadium that still glistens from its latest renovation.

Maybe even Kansas coach David Beaty knew that this dream was big — maybe a little too big — for his rebuilding Jayhawks. In the last six weeks — in six Big 12 contests — Kansas had been outscored 313-77. So, yes, nobody in the universe expected this: Late in the fourth quarter on Saturday, the Jayhawks taking over at their own 48-yard line, trailing by six points and needing just one touchdown to finish off one of the most improbable upsets in college football history.

That’s what this would have been, too. In the era since such records were kept, no team had ever been more than a 46-point underdog and emerged with a victory.

“Expect to win,” Beaty kept telling his team. “Don’t be surprised.”

The hope would soon recede. On the first of the drive, Willis underthrew his intended target and the pass was intercepted by TCU’s Ty Summers, a back-breaking pick as Patterson, the Horned Frogs’ long-time head coach, exhaled on the sideline.

“You have to give KU credit,” Patterson said. “They had far less to play for, and they played hard.”

So put this one on the pile of heart-aching losses and near-misses during this lost era of KU football. With Boykin on the sideline, the Kansas defense held the TCU offense to just 16 points and 487 total yards, nearly 150 under its average. The Jayhawks erased a 10-0 deficit, were tied at halftime and were within one score with six minutes left.

“The thing that I’m probably most proud of, is I saw in our guys’ eyes,” Beaty said. “They were playing a football game. They were not worried about who they were playing. And that was a whole different feel.”

For nearly four quarters, they felt it. But they could not make it last. Playing on two sore groin muscles, Willis completed 20 of 41 pass attempts for 203 yards. For most of the second half, the Kansas offense could not sustain drives.

“We got to find a way to manufacture more offense,” Beaty said.

In Beaty’s mind, though, the game was perhaps decided in the opening quarter, when TCU punt returner KaVontae Turpin hauled in a line-drive kick at the 49-yard line and left the Jayhawks in his wake during a weaving, field-reversing touchdown return. Junior kicker Matthew Wyman, who took over the punting duties earlier this season, had one of his best days as a Jayhawk, drilling a 38-yard field goal and averaging 43.4 yards on 11 punts. But his second punt, which came off his right foot low and hard, was costly.

On a Saturday afternoon where the margin was supposed to be six touchdowns, the Jayhawks lost by just six points. You could call it a moral victory, perhaps, although coaches are loathe to use that term. Beaty, though, said his program could use this loss to grow, both during home games against West Virginia and K-State over the next two weeks and during next season. Was Saturday progress? Kansas players certainly thought so. But it was also a lesson, Beaty said.

“It’s still one of those deals where you got to make more plays than they do,” Beaty said, sitting in the bowels of Amon G. Carter Stadium. “And they made a couple of big plays.”

This story was originally published November 14, 2015 at 1:01 PM with the headline "KU comes up just short in upset bid, falls 23-17 at TCU."