Photo Courtesy: Dominic Ceraldi
With 3:00 minutes remaining in Saturday’s meeting between the #3 ranked TCU Horned Frogs and the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks, the view of the east side stands at Amon Carter Stadium showed mostly empty seats. Now that happens to be the side facing the west setting sun around 4:00 pm, so a game time temperature of around 90° could have sent some to seek a more shaded area of the stadium. I venture to think that most had seen enough of the mismatch and sought refuge back at their tailgating activities.
Leading 35-0 at that point of the game, interest throughout seemed to have dissipated for the Frog faithful. It became a question then as to how long was Coach Gary Patterson was going leave his Heisman candidate, quarterback Trevone Boykin, in to pad his stats. The Lumberjacks were offering no resistance to a Frog offense that actually began the game with a 3 and out on its first series.
Next possession of the Frogs saw them march 93 yards in 8 plays to take a 7-0 lead. The flood gates then opened and TCU scored on its next four possessions as running backs Aaron Green, KaVontae Turpin and receiver Kolby Listenbee each reached the end zone.
The Lumberjacks had the look of a team who arrived in Fort Worth only in spirit because not much else was present given their performance. They opened the game with a misdirection play for a 15-yard gain and for the next 29 minutes and 45 seconds of game time action, they could only scratch out 24 more yards with 36 plays to accomplish it.
The eventual 70-7 type of slaying was one a #3 ranked team should issue out to a middle of the pack FBS school like Stephen F. Austin. For their sacrificial efforts, the school located down in Nacogdoches, Texas walked away with a check for $375,000. Almost the amount of yards it seemed TCU could racked up on offense had they tried.
THREE GAME OBSERVATIONS
1) Trevone Boykin throws a beautiful deep ball. The 60-yard TD he threw to Kolby Listenbee traveled 65 yards in the air and Listenbee never broke stride. He has good, not great arm strength. Accuracy is still a question. He missed three receivers early in the first quarter, throws that he later made in the game.
2) The previously mentioned Kolby Listenbee is a burner!! A member of the Frogs track team where he was a finalist this past May in 100 Meters (10.05) at the NCAA Championships, the fluid speedster is a mismatch for any secondary wanting to “cheat a safety” over to Josh Doctson’s side of the field.
3) Stephen F. Austin quarterback Zach Conque looks the part of a prototypical pocket passer that the pro scouts drool over. Standing 6’6″ and weighing 240, he looked “pro ready” in warm ups. Once the game started, it was clear to see why he was at SFA and not leading a Big XII or SEC team. He never challenged the Frogs secondary, looking more for the safe outlet routes and ‘dump offs’ to the backs. Just once I would have loved to see him take a seven step drop, stand tall and uncork that big right arm.
