TCU’s 2026 season opener is still 15 days away, but the countdown has already landed on one of the most familiar names in recent Horned Frog history: Max Duggan.
The former TCU quarterback wore No. 15, and his career gave the program plenty to celebrate long before the Frogs head to Dublin, Ireland, to face North Carolina on Aug. 29. Duggan left Fort Worth with more than 11,000 total yards and 101 touchdowns across four seasons, a resume that started with him as a four-star recruit and first took shape when he made his first start in the 2019 season.
Duggan played in 47 games for TCU and piled up 9,618 passing yards with 73 touchdown passes and 28 interceptions. On the ground, he added 1,856 rushing yards and 28 touchdowns. He also completed 60 percent of his passes, giving the Frogs a quarterback who could hurt defenses in more than one way.
His biggest leap came in his senior season under head coach Sonny Dykes and offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Garrett Riley. After three uneven years to open his TCU career, Duggan delivered his best stretch yet, throwing for 3,698 yards and a career-high 32 touchdowns against just eight interceptions. That 32:8 mark stood as the best touchdown-to-interception ratio of his career, and he finished one touchdown shy of Trevone Boykin’s school record of 33.
That season carried TCU all the way to a 13-2 finish, a Big 12 title game appearance and a Fiesta Bowl win over Michigan that sent the Horned Frogs to the CFP National Championship. Duggan finished second in Heisman Trophy voting to USC quarterback Caleb Williams and was named the 2022 Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year along with First-Team All-Big 12 honors.
The awards kept stacking up from there. Duggan won the Davey O’Brien Award, the Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award and the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award. He was also named a Second-Team All-American by three outlets, a finalist for the Walter Camp Player of the Year Award and a semifinalist for the Maxwell Award.
After his college run, Duggan entered the 2023 NFL Draft, where the Los Angeles Chargers picked him in the seventh round following his trips to the Senior Bowl and the Scouting Combine. He later moved on to the UFL with the St.
Louis Battlehawks, where he threw four touchdowns and four interceptions while posting 563 passing yards, 300 rushing yards and five rushing touchdowns. In 2025, he signed with the Toronto Argonauts in the CFL, and in 2026 he signed with and was released by the Ottawa Redblacks.
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TCU May Have An Early Edge With This New-Look Tight End Room
TCU heads into its season opener against North Carolina with a different feel at tight end, where Mitch Kirsch is helping piece together a room that looks more by committee than star-driven. The Horned Frogs lost important production from last season, but they still have a workable foundation in redshirt juniors KaMorreun Pimpton and Lafayette Kaiuway, with junior Kari Ashley among the names drawing attention as the staff sorts out roles and responsibilities.
The plan is to lean into multiple tight end sets and use that depth to create problems for defenses in both phases. For a team trying to settle in early in the season, that kind of versatility could matter, especially if TCU can make its new-look group a real part of the run game and the passing game instead of simply filling snaps left behind. [Read more 🡒]