After reviewing Iowa's 2009 team and comparing them to teams past, we'll do the same for 7-0 TCU.
First question: better than last season?
Like Iowa, it's a legitimate question whether this year's model is really better than last year's, which went 11-2, losing only to Oklahoma and Utah, and
- 2008: Record: 11-2; AP #7. Power rating: Strength #7, Overall #9
- 2009: Record: 7-0; AP #8. Power rating: Strength #3, Overall #4
Well, they just might be better this year. After clobbering BYU, the Horned Frogs rank #3 in Strength and are #4 overall.
Second question: best TCU team of the decade?
TCU really came on strong in the 2000s. Before that they had a four-decade drought where they didn't finish in the top 20/25. During this stretch, they had some good teams, but also had many mediocre and poor squads. When the Southwestern Conference folded, the Horned Frogs jumped to the WAC for a few years, then were in the C-USA from 2001 to 2004 before ending up in the Mountain West. During this transitionary time they had their best era of the last half century.
- 2000: Record: 10-2; AP#21. Power Rating: Strength: #10; Overall: #12
- 2002: Record: 10-2; AP#23. Power Rating: Strength: #55; Overall: #50
- 2003: Record: 11-2; AP#25. Power Rating: Strength: #57; Overall: #54
- 2005: Record: 11-1; AP#11. Power Rating: Strength: #22; Overall: #20
- 2006: Record: 11-2; AP#22. Power Rating: Strength: #22; Overall: #24
- 2007: Record: 8-5; AP#nr. Power Rating: Strength: #48; Overall: #51
Dennis Franchione coached the 2000 team to the school's best record in 40-some years. They beat a solid Northwestern team but had a very easy schedule—a scheduled game with Nebraska got bumped to next season—and didn't get a lot of respect; pollsters weren't used to seeing their name in the rankings and they were in the weak WAC. At 11-1, they were consigned to a December 20th bowl game and then Franchione moved on to Alabama, leaving Gary Patterson to coach the bowl. They lost, which seemed to prove the nay-sayers right. The AP did rank them fairly for their accomplishments, but they were a much better team than #21.
The naysayers also thought their success was a temporary deal, especially with Franchione gone. 2001 seemed to bear this out. But Patterson started an ongoing campaign that is now approaching a decade of success. In 2002 the Frogs, now in the C-USA, finished 10-2 and won a bowl game, though their abysmal schedule was worth only a token year-end ranking. The next year was more of the same, a 10-0 start against a porous schedule; that year they lost a battle of 1-loss teams to Boise State. A losing record marred 2004.
In 2005 the Horned Frogs moved to the Mountain West and had a legitimate top 25 team. Their first-game upset of Oklahoma is legendary; the rest of the country had already fallen back into thinking "Texas Christian? They're terrible aren't they?" so it was completely unexpected. The letdown loss to SMU that followed made it look like Oklahoma was simply terrible. But the Frogs won the rest of their games and beat Iowa State in the Houston Bowl, 27-24. The next year the league got tougher and TCU didn't, leaving them at 8-5, but setting the stage for the last two years.
Overall this era was very good, but as a whole it can't compare to the last two years, which are unquestionably the best two teams of the Patterson era. Only Franchione's 2000 squad comes close to equalling the 2008 and 2009 teams. Fans complained that the Horned Frogs didn't get their fair shake with the pollsters for their success, but until recently the team played a very easy schedule and didn't win convincingly enough to be taken seriously as a top 10 team.
The 1950s
Texas Christian was a mainstay of the AP top 20 during the 50s, with several strong finishes.
- 1951: Record: 6-5-0; AP#11. Power Rating: Strength: #18; Overall: #19
- 1955: Record: 9-2-0; AP#6. Power Rating: Strength: #3; Overall: #5
- 1956: Record: 8-3-0; AP#14. Power Rating: Strength: #10; Overall: #10
- 1958: Record: 8-2-1; AP#10. Power Rating: Strength: #8; Overall: #11
- 1959: Record: 8-3-0; AP#7. Power Rating: Strength: #7; Overall: #7
In 1951 Texas Christian ranked #11 in the final AP poll, which was taken of course before the bowl games. In TCU's case, that bowl was a 20-7 loss to Kentucky. The 1955 team was a powerhouse, losing only to Texas A&M by a field goal and in the Cotton Bowl to Mississippi by a point; that team's Strength and Success profile's look almost identical to this year's team's. 1956 was another good year, with just three losses.
1958 and 1959 were more of the same, with top-ten level teams finishing with just 2 losses during the regular season each year. Bowl games were a problem again; the January 1, 1959 Cotton Bowl ending in a 0-0 tie with Air Force, and the 1959 Bluebonnet Bowl a 23-7 loss to Clemson.
Objectively this is the best era in TCU's history, with multiple true top ten level teams. But the 2008 squad was the equal of most of these teams (relative to the era), and the 2009 team has the potential to be better than all of them. The 1955 squad is the one to beat.
The Best TCU teams of all time...
From early in the 1900s Texas Christian had some teams with good records but they played schedules that would make even the early-2000's squads weep. But starting in 1929 they had their first decade of great success, and it culminated in their only national championship.
- 1929: Record: 9-0-1; Power Rating: Strength: #2; Overall: #3
- 1930: Record: 9-2-1; Power Rating: Strength: #22; Overall: #24
- 1931: Record: 9-2-1; Power Rating: Strength: #49; Overall: #46
- 1932: Record: 10-0-1; Power Rating: Strength: #3; Overall: #3
- 1933: Record: 9-2-1; Power Rating: Strength: #21; Overall: #22
- 1934: Record: 8-4-0; Power Rating: Strength: #32; Overall: #26
- 1935: Record: 12-1-0; Power Rating: Strength: #7; Overall: #4
- 1936: Record: 9-2-2; AP#16. Power Rating: Strength: #10; Overall: #8
- 1937: Record: 4-4-2; AP#16. Power Rating: Strength: #24; Overall: #25
- 1938: Record: 11-0-0; AP#1. Power Rating: Strength: #4; Overall: #3
Four teams from this era stand out. The 1929 team went undefeated but tied SMU (SMU finished 6-0-4 that year). This is Candidate A for best TCU team of all time. The 1932 squad also was undefeated; their tie came at the hands of LSU early in the season. The 1935 team went 12-1 and declared itself the national champion retroactively based on the Williamson System. As 1936 was the first year for the AP poll, there have been many attempts to objectively determine the national champion before that date. But even before the AP, many others were handing out championships in real-time. None of the contemporary organizations saw TCU as the national champ, probably because they lost to 12-1 SMU that year. And the champion was normally declared before the bowl games, when SMU was 12-0. If the AP had a poll in 1935, there's no way TCU would have been #1.
In 1938, however, they did finish #1 after going 11-0. In my system, 11-0 Tennessee ends up as both the strongest team, and the one deserving to be #1. Regardless, the 1938 team is another candidate for the best TCU team of all time, and is normally considered to be so as they were undefeated.
Conclusion
The last two TCU teams have been among the best Horned Frog teams ever. The 2008 team was probably the best team in a half century, and outranks all but one of the 1950s teams. The 1930s have several teams that were better, relatively, than the 2008 squad.
The 2009 team is living up to the best of the 1930s teams so far. It looks like they are BCS-bowl bound if they win out, regardless of what Boise State does. If this happens and they win their bowl game, they could be the top TCU team of all time without winning a national championship. To have that honor without dispute, however, they'd have to slip into the national title game—unlikely, but not impossible—and win it.
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