What TCU players said after blowout national championship loss to Georgia
TCU found out the hard way Monday night — it’s one thing to prepare for Georgia, and it’s another thing to play it. Teams can’t simulate the speed and physicality in practice of elite recruits being coached at an elite level during games.
The result? Georgia destroyed TCU Monday night in the College Football Playoff national championship game 65-7. Stetson Bennett combined for 6 touchdowns, while Georgia’s defense suffocated Heisman Trophy finalist Max Duggan and TCU’s offense.
Following the game, TCU’s Duggan and linebacker Dee Winters were asked about the blowout loss to the Bulldogs.
Q. I know that this isn’t the result you wanted today. But when you look back on this season, after being picked seventh in the Big 12 and everybody kind of overlooked you guys, how do you put into words finishing 13-2 with the Fiesta Bowl championship win?
MAX DUGGAN: “I think Coach Dykes said it. Tonight did not go the way we wanted it to. Disappointed in that aspect. But tonight isn’t going to take away from this season and what we were able to do as a program.
“I don’t think that’s going to define all the good memories and all the success that we had this season to project and put this program in the right direction and moving forward. I think that was the biggest thing of this program’s moving in the right way in the right direction. There were so many great memories this year. Obviously we’re disappointed tonight, but not going to let this take away from a remarkable season.”
DEE WINTERS: “I think he pretty much hit the nail on the head. This is something we definitely weren’t looking forward to. But looking back, it was a long journey. And I think all the guys kind of appreciate Coach Kaz and Coach Dykes coming in and showing us the ropes of how to be a winner. And we’re excited to have them the next couple of years.”
Were they that much better than you? That outcome we were not expecting at all. Were they that much better than you?
DEE WINTERS: “You know, defensive flaws, they didn’t really do anything special. We just kind of beat ourselves up. Kind of just executed on our mis-alignments and kept scoring on those.
“We just kept beating ourselves up, just overthinking, trying to run too fast to the ball and things of that nature.”
MAX DUGGAN: “They’re a great team. Everybody knows how good they’ve been this year and prior years, and we knew that. I think tonight was one of those nights where at least offensively we couldn’t get anything rolling. They were playing well on defense. We were shooting ourselves in the foot. I was making bad decisions. I wasn’t executing well and not putting us in a position to score some points and move the ball.
“But they’re a great team. Obviously that’s not what we thought was going to happen or wanted to happen or what we worked for. But it was just one of those nights where we couldn’t really do much on our end.”
Q. Max, how much was Georgia’s pressure, was that the most pressure you’ve kind of seen all year in terms of how consistent and quick they were?
MAX DUGGAN: “I mean, they were good up front. I don’t know. I don’t really know compared to stuff coming up in this year or this season. They had some blitzes, some pressures they got through. I held onto the ball a little bit too long, wasn’t getting through reads, was kind of causing trouble for the O line myself. It was kind of on me.
“But they had some good schemes. Again, going back to the stuff we were doing that we weren’t executing well, and they were playing well on their end, and that isn’t a great recipe for success.”
Q. This hasn’t happened to you. How can you describe the feeling, the frustration early in the game when you figured out what you’re so good at wasn’t there tonight?
DEE WINTERS: “You know, it was just something that we really had to finish, like you said, but Coach Kaz did a great job just trying to tell us always have that next-play mentality, to come out and just compete. And you go from there.”
MAX DUGGAN: “I think when stuff like that happens you’ve got to go back to your roots, go back to your values, the culture that we set. It was frustrating. Haven’t been in a situation like that. But you’ve got to dig yourself out of a hole. You’ve got to believe.
“I know going forward, this program is going to get on this stage again. And if we’re ever in a situation like that, I know we’re going to be able to get out of it, have some success. And I’m pretty positive in that.”
“What TCU players said after blowout national championship loss to Georgia”
Ouch.
“DEE WINTERS: ‘You know, defensive flaws, they didn’t really do anything special. We just kind of beat ourselves up. Kind of just executed on our mis-alignments and kept scoring on those.'”
Don’t know if I agree with this statement. UGA did do something special. They executed when it mattered, played a complete game, won back-to-back national championships, and went undefeated. This whole season was special.
True. You didn’t beat yourself when you lose by over half a hundred.
At least we managed to score 28 on Roidbraska back in 1995, and actually led that game somehow at the end of the first quarter.
Last night was the worst championship game or bowl game with title ramifications that I can remember in my lifetime. Far worse than us losing to Roidbraska then pounding the Evil Nole 52-20.
FCS Champion South Dakota State would have shown better last night.
Nah. There have been plenty of title game blowouts that were as bad or worse. Notre Dame-Alabama was 28-0 at halftime. Saban called off the dogs. That was the game that created the playoff, remember?
Another one: Miami vs Alabama. The final score was only 34-13 because the folks in Tuscaloosa didn’t believe in offensive football back then but if I recall Alabama scored more points on defense in that game than Miami did on offense. It is the only title game that I can remember where one team was actually physically afraid of the other, which to their credit did not describe TCU, who kept trying to get back up and make plays whenever the bigger, stronger, faster and deeper UGA knocked them down … TCU showed more resilience than Tennessee did in a much closer game.
Speaking of the Vols, there was Tennessee-Nebraska. The score LOOKED respectable at 42-17, but the Vols only managed field goals for the first 3 quarters. When Peyton Manning was mercifully benched, Tee Martin came in and Nebraska was like “whatevs” and allowed him to drive the Vols down the field and put up a TD and 2 point conversion with less than a minute left. Martin was sarcastically given an applause. Little that anyone know that it was the beginning of something that would be epic … until Phil Fulmer and Randy Sanders derailed it (they were the only ones capable of doing so).
Finally, there was Oklahoma-USC. Oklahoma actually scored the first TD – similar to TCU making it 7-7 early in the first – but then it was 55-3 the rest of the way. And this was with USC spending the entire second half bored and going through the motions. Similar to Nebraska-Tennessee, the Trojans gave up a safety and a TD late in the 4th quarter because the postgame party couldn’t start fast enough.
UGA-TCU may have looked worse than those games, but they actually weren’t.
The TCU D looked lost on the field most plays. Blame the coaches for being out coached. The TCU players had a helluva year. Sad for them because it ended like this.
The question on everyone’s mind should be “Why didn’t Michigan destroy this TCU team?”
Because Tcu had 30 days to get ready and Michigan is slow. And smallish ,and they threw 2 pic sixes and 3 points in 3 possessions inside the 3
when the game first started and the cameras were doing close-ups of the players I said I thought they looked like they were in shock, like deer in the headlights. They looked like that until i changed the channel almost at halftime. ga looked very focused. Kirby does a very good job of that in the big games most of the time.
TCU had a great season and there are no good answers for those questions. Just as well say “hey they kicked our butts in every facet of the game so lets talk about something else”.
Michigan got stopped on the 1, stopped on the 2, and three 2 pick sixes…. And STILL almost won! That’s a swing of 28 points. Statistical chances of that happening again while playing as poorly on defense as they did is very slim…
It’s my understanding that KState won the Big 12 and deserved to be in that conference’s biggest bowl game
There is no way two Big 10 programs deserved to be in a final four. Clearly the one that lost to TCU should not have been in such a bowl. The men who picked them over the PAC champs and the ACC champs should be barred from voting for these ever again.