TCU walked into Saturday night with a real chance to land a season-swinging win. Instead, the Horned Frogs left Amon G. Carter Stadium with another reminder of how thin the margin has been for this offense.
In a wet, messy 17-10 loss to No. 10 BYU, TCU’s defense delivered its best showing since the 2022 win at Texas.
The Horned Frogs held the Cougars in check, created stops, and kept the game in striking distance all night. But the offense never did enough to cash in, and that was the difference.
TCU is now 2-3 overall and 0-2 in Big 12 play. BYU moved to 4-0 and 2-0.
The game had all the ingredients for an upset. BYU was missing one of its top offensive weapons and several defensive standouts, and the conditions made life miserable for both sides.
The Cougars had their own sloppiness to fight through, with low snaps, dropped passes and false starts piling up. Even so, TCU couldn’t turn the chaos into a breakthrough.
The decisive moment came late. Trailing 10-7, TCU had a chance to tie it, but Nate McCashland’s 46-yard field goal try with 8:01 left came up short. BYU then drained nearly six minutes off the clock before sophomore quarterback Bear Bachmeier finished the Horned Frogs off with a 21-yard touchdown run, dragging multiple defenders into the end zone with 2:06 remaining.
Jaden Craig’s night never fully found rhythm, and the early numbers told the story. TCU went scoreless on its first four possessions, with Craig under pressure and the run game struggling to get going.
He was sacked twice, and one costly mistake came on a fourth-down throw deep in BYU territory that was picked off and eventually returned to the red zone in the second quarter. That turnover led to BYU’s only touchdown of the first half.
Craig did answer before halftime. He completed all four of his passes on the final drive of the half, finishing it with a 13-yard touchdown to junior tight end Kari Ashley with 27 seconds left to tie the game at 7.
But the second half never really opened up for the Horned Frogs. Craig managed only 18 passing yards in a scoreless third quarter, and when TCU had chances in the fourth, the offense again leaned away from him.
Offensive coordinator Gordon Sammis turned to junior running back Jeremy Payne, just as TCU had done late against North Carolina. Payne helped move the ball to the BYU 28-yard line, but once the Horned Frogs had to throw, Craig completed only a short screen to Ed Small.
The field goal try that followed missed, and the opportunity slipped away.
The biggest reason TCU was even in position to threaten was the defense, which played with real bite from the opening quarter. The Horned Frogs limited BYU to 3.2 yards per play and held the Cougars to 101 total yards in the first half, the fewest BYU had managed in a game since 2023. Bachmeier was bottled up for long stretches early, finishing the first half 6-of-15 for 31 yards as TCU forced stops on five of BYU’s six first-half drives.
Up front, TCU’s defensive line set the tone. Senior edge rusher Zach Chapman’s return mattered, and the Horned Frogs consistently won battles in the trenches against an offensive line led by All-Big 12 center Bruce Mitchell.
BYU’s own mistakes helped TCU, but the Horned Frogs also made the Cougars uncomfortable snap after snap. The secondary did its part too, keeping BYU freshman receiver Legend Glasker quiet and holding him to 35 total yards, with 26 on the ground and nine through the air.
Then there was the shift when BYU lost LJ Martin. The reigning Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year left early in the first quarter with an injury after two carries for 16 yards, and the Cougars had to reshape their offense around Bachmeier’s legs.
He had only 12 rushing attempts through the first three games, but he carried it five times in the first half and finished with 15 on the night. His 9-yard touchdown run after Craig’s interception put BYU up 7-0, and he kept grinding away in the second half, picking up 54 rushing yards after halftime.
Bachmeier threw for just 62 yards, the lowest total of his career, but his running carried BYU through.
If TCU needed a bright spot on offense, Kari Ashley was it. The junior tight end kept flashing as the Horned Frogs’ most reliable weapon.
He finished with 108 receiving yards, moving him to third nationally among tight ends in receiving yardage, behind only Virginia Tech’s Luke Reynolds and Memphis’ Hunter Tipton. Ashley produced 60 total yards in the first half, including the touchdown catch, and added an important 13-yard third-down grab that helped push TCU into BYU territory later on.
TCU could not get much else going through the air. Senior wide receiver Jordan Dwyer was held without a catch, and no Horned Frogs wideout topped 25 receiving yards.
The Horned Frogs now get a week off before heading to Baylor on Oct. 17.
In Other News...
BYU Just Proved It Can Win Even When Things Get Uncomfortable
The Horned Frogs had the kind of night that can linger for a while in Fort Worth, one where the defense did enough to keep things within reach but the offense never found a steady rhythm. Against No. 10 BYU, TCU hung around into halftime and leaned on a defense that limited the Cougars through the air and held up against the run, but the inability to build sustained drives kept the pressure on every snap.
In a 10-7 loss that dropped TCU to 2-3, the larger concern is not just the result but how hard it was for the Frogs to manufacture momentum when the game tightened up. The defense gave them a chance against a ranked opponent, yet the offenses inconsistency left too little margin for error, and that combination has become a familiar problem for a team trying to steady its season. [Read more 🡒]
TCUs Offense Is Turning A Big Strength Into An Early Crisis
TCUs defense has been doing plenty to keep the Horned Frogs in games, and on some nights it has been good enough to turn the whole operation into a grind. Under Sonny Dykes, this has quietly become one of the better defensive units in the country, sitting inside the top 15 nationally in scoring defense. Even in the loss to No. 10 BYU, the Frogs made life difficult for Bear Bachmeier and held him to 62 passing yards, the kind of effort that usually gives a team a real chance to steal a win.
The problem is that the offense has not held up its end of the bargain against Power Four competition, where TCU is averaging just 11 points a game. That gap showed up again in the 17-10 loss to the Cougars, a result that left the Frogs with another frustrating reminder that strong defense alone will not be enough. Dykes has said the defense is playing well, but the bigger question hanging over the program now is how quickly the offense can catch up before these narrow games start slipping away for good. [Read more 🡒]