TCU ends BYU’s bid for perfection

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Brigham Young will need a small miracle to reach the Bowl Championship Series. And maybe even just to win the Mountain West Conference.

With an ironic twist of revenge, and a smothering defense, Texas Christian made sure of that.

Andy Dalton threw for two touchdowns in his return from a knee injury, and the Horned Frogs sacked Max Hall six times in a 32-7 victory Thursday night that snapped the ninth-ranked Cougars' 16-game winning streak, which had been the longest in major college football.

"It just hurts. The BCS winning streak, when you get beat 30-something to seven, that stuff doesn't matter," BYU defensive lineman Jan Jorgensen said. "When you have high expectations like our team has and as hard as we worked to get better, it just feels horrible."

Sort of the way TCU felt two years ago when the Cougars last visited Fort Worth and ended the Frogs' 13-game winning streak, which also was the nation's longest.

BYU (6-1, 2-1 Mountain West) never had a chance this time. It wasn't even close, as TCU registered its biggest win ever over a top-10 team.

"Nobody has been able to do that to BYU for a couple of years," Frogs coach Gary Patterson said. "No way I could have seen it coming."

TCU (7-1, 4-0) had been pointing to this game since January, when a BYU logo was placed on a blocking dummy in the team weight room.

The Frogs scored on their first three drives, twice after turnovers by Hall, for a 17-0 lead -- scoring as many points in 16 minutes as BYU had allowed its last 16 quarters.

"It's more disappointing than surprising," BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall said. "We knew they were a very good football team. But when you make mistakes like we made against a team like that, that simply is the result."

Hall, who had been sacked only twice in the first six games, was sacked four times before halftime. His fumble, when he was sacked for the first time, set up TCU's first touchdown, and he threw an interception that led to another score.

With the first BCS standings coming out Sunday, the only undefeated team left in the Mountain West is No. 14 Utah (7-0), whose eight-game winning streak is tied with No. 3 Penn State and No. 7 Texas Tech for the longest in the country.

The Utes obviously have the best chance among BCS outsiders to get into one of the major bowls. But they still have to play TCU, which certainly can't be eliminated from that conversation because its only loss was at No. 4 Oklahoma.