TCU

TCU's first year of football started on December 7, 1896, when it went by the name AddRan Christian University until 1902. TCU won its first game ever played by beating Toby's Business College to the score of 8–6, without having to use any substitutes. TCU finished the 1896 season with a record of 1–1–1, before improving to 3–1 the following year. During this time, the university was located in Waco, Texas, until they returned to Fort Worth in 1910 where the school was founded. Prior to joining the Southwest Conference in 1923, TCU amassed a record of 165–15–0. In 1912, TCU went 8–1–0 and scored 230 points while only allowing 53 points the whole season. In 1920, TCU won its first conference title as a member of the Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association (TIAA). The Horned Frogs' 9–1–0 record earned them a spot in the Fort Worth Classic, also known as the Dixie Bowl, against Centre College. Although the game was played in Fort Worth, Centre won the game 63–7. In 1923, during TCU's first year in the SWC, it earned a 2–1–0 conference record and a 5–4–0 overall record. One loss that year was a 40–21 decision against TCU's emerging rival, the SMU Mustangs, who went 9–0 en route to a conference championship. The next year, TCU finished second place in the conference with a 5–1 SWC record and another 5–2 overall record. After two great seasons, the Horned Frogs righted the ship. Prior to 1923 TCU had had a revolving door of coaches, with no one coaching the football team for more than two years. Following entrance to the SWC, the school established a high degree of stability, employing just four coaches over the next 43 years, and would not hit last place again until 1953. Under those four coaches (Bell, Schmidt, Meyer, and Martin), the Frogs accumulated a record of 262–165–30. Matty Bell, who began coaching the Frogs in 1923, had his best year in 1928, his last year as coach. That year's only losses came at home 7–6 to the Baylor Bears and to Texas by a score of 6–0. That year the Frogs finished in second place in the conference at 8–2–0 overall and 3–2 in conference play. The 1929 season saw the arrival of Coach Francis Schmidt and TCU's first SWC title. The title was won in the last game of the year on November 30, 1929, against SMU. Coming into the game TCU led SMU in the conference standings. TCU had 4 wins, while SMU's conference record was 3–0–1. Since this was the last conference game of the year for both teams, TCU could win its first SWC title with a win or a tie. The first half of the game was scoreless, but in the third quarter Weldon "Speedy" Mason tacked on 40 yards to a 16-yard pass from SMU quarterback Bob Gilbert. After the extra point, the Mustangs led 7–0. TCU would not score until its second time on the SMU 1-yard line in the fourth quarter. That is when TCU quarterback Howard Grubbs ran behind All-SWC fullback Harlos Green and Mike Brumbelow for the game-tying score. The Frogs left plenty of time on the clock for SMU to answer their score, but Grubbs, now playing defense, intercepted Gilbert's pass. TCU then ran the clock out to force the tie and to win its first SWC title.

1935 began the first year for TCU coach Dutch Meyer. That year TCU and SMU again met to decide not only the SWC title but the first trip to the Rose Bowl for a team from the SWC. Grantland Rice of the New York Sun called it the "Game of the Century" and reported the following:

In a TCU Stadium that seated 30,000 spectators, over 36,000 wildly excited Texans and visitors from every corner of the map packed, jammed, and fought their way into every square foot of standing and seating space to see one of the greatest football games ever played…this tense, keyed up crowd even leaped the wire fences from the top of automobiles...

SMU scored the first 14 points of the game. TCU, led by All-American quarterback Sammy Baugh, tied the game at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Then, with seven minutes left in the game SMU, on a 4th and 4 on the Frogs' 37 yard-line, lined up to punt. Quarterback Bob Finley threw a 50-yard pass to running back Bobby Wilson who made what is described as a "jumping, twisting catch that swept him over the line for the touchdown." TCU would lose the game 20–14, but would be invited to play the LSU Tigers in the 1936 Sugar Bowl, where the Frogs would be victorious 3–2 at messy and muddy Tulane Stadium. Even with the loss to SMU, who later lost to Stanford in the 1936 Rose Bowl, TCU claims 1935 as a national championship year. Dan Jenkins states that one of the first statistical national polls was created by Frank G. Dickinson in 1924. By 1935 there were several other polls, and "…only one of them was big and caught on big and rivaled Dickinson. This was the Paul O. Williamson System out of New Orleans. It quickly gained nation-wide respect and a large syndicated circulation." The Williamson System awarded TCU a shared championship with LSU in 1935, the year before the first sportswriter poll by the Associated Press. The Dickinson poll awarded SMU the national title, and several smaller polls designated the University of Minnesota and Princeton University as their champions Meyer led TCU to a win in the inaugural Cotton Bowl Classic in 1937. A year later, TCU would go undefeated in 1938 behind TCU's only Heisman Trophy winner—quarterback Davey O'Brien. That year the Frogs' closest game came against the University of Arkansas where they beat the Razorbacks 21–14 in Fort Worth. They were invited to the 1939 Sugar Bowl and beat the Carnegie Tech Tartans from Pittsburgh by a score of 15–7 in front of more than 50,000 spectators. Meyer coached TCU from 1934 to 1952, compiling a record of 109–79–13. He also won seven Southwest Conference titles. During Meyer's tenure, TCU played in the first nationally televised regular season game against Kansas.

When Dutch Meyer retired, his backfield assistant, Abe Martin, became head coach at TCU. One of his three tries at a SWC title came in 1958. The Frogs only losses were to Iowa by a score of 0–17 and at No. 18 SMU, 13–20. The 1958 season ended in a scoreless tie against the Air Force Falcons in the 1959 Cotton Bowl Classic. Martin-led TCU teams amassed a 1–3–1 record in bowl games. The lone win came in the 1957 Cotton Bowl Classic against a Jim Brown-led Syracuse team in front of 68,000 spectators. A blocked extra-point attempt was the difference in the game and allowed the Horned Frogs to win 28–27. After TCU won the 1959 SWC championship, the Horned Frogs did not earn another share of the conference title for 20 years. During this time, TCU played the role of the underdog. In 1961, Bill Van Fleet of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram called the Horned Frogs' 6–0 win at then-No. 1 Texas, "the season's greatest upset of the year."[17] In 1965, TCU traveled to El Paso to play in the Sun Bowl against UTEP; the Frogs lost[18] 13–12.

The subpar results of Martin's last eight seasons would become the norm for TCU for most of the next quarter century. Martin retired in 1966 to focus on his role as athletic director, and the state of football at TCU declined in the late 1960s and into the 1970s. Coaches Fred Taylor, Jim Pittman, and Billy Tohill showed limited success from 1967 until 1973. Pittman had a .500 (3–3–1) record in his lone season when he succumbed to a sideline heart attack at Baylor in game eight of 1971. The Horned Frogs bottomed out in the second half of the 1970s. Under Coach Jim Shofner (1974–76) the Frogs struggled mightily to a 2–31 record that included a winless 1976 campaign. F.A. Dry's coaching administration commenced in 1977 and reveled in a 2–9 record after the previous poor seasons. In his six seasons, Dry's Frog teams mustered only 12 wins total and no seasons with more than three wins. During the nine year stretch from 1974 to 1982, TCU won just 14 games overall while losing 82 (and tying three), one of the worst showings for any Division I(-A) team during this period. Only Northwestern had a worse record (12-86-1) during this stretch among "power conference" teams (at the time, the ACC, Big 8, Big 10, Pac-8/Pac-10, SEC and SWC) and major independents.

TCU would have a successful year in 1984 under coach Jim Wacker. That year TCU leaned on All-American running back Kenneth Davis. The squad started the season 8–0 finishing the regular season with three losses. The Frogs got invited to the Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston that year to play the West Virginia Mountaineers, their first bowl appearance in 20 years. The Frogs would lose to the Mountaineers 31–14 and finish with a record of 8–4. TCU wouldn't attend another bowl game until the 1994 Independence Bowl.

TCU had very high hopes for 1985. Davis had been a finalist for the Heisman Trophy in 1984, and was one of the early favorites to win it in 1985. However, for all intents and purposes, the Horned Frogs' season ended a few days after the first game when Wacker discovered that several players, including Davis, had been benefiting from a payment plan in violation of NCAA rules. Wacker promptly kicked the players off the team and self-reported the infractions to the NCAA. The Frogs collapsed to a 3–8 record, including a winless SWC slate. In 1986, the NCAA slapped TCU with three years' probation and a ban on postseason play in the 1986 season. The most severe penalty in the long run, however, was a reduction to only 25 scholarships in 1987 and 1988. To this day, Horned Frog fans remain bitter that the NCAA imposed such a severe penalty given that the violations were voluntarily reported. As heavy-handed as this penalty was, the NCAA seriously considered banning the Horned Frogs from bowl games and live television for three years and no new scholarships in 1987 or 1988. However, it praised Wacker for taking swift corrective action once the violations came to light, including kicking the players off the team when he was well aware that it would cripple the team for the upcoming season. As it turned out, the penalties that were imposed were severe enough that TCU would need the rest of the 1980s and most of the 1990s to recover; they would only have three winning seasons from 1985 to 1997. TCU wouldn't have another winning season until 1991 (though coming close in 1987 and 1990). In 1991, the Horned Frogs finished 7–4, their first winning season in eight years. However, blowout losses to Texas and Texas A&M kept them out of a bowl. Following the season, Wacker left for Minnesota.

In 1992, TCU hired Pat Sullivan, the 1971 Heisman Trophy winner from Auburn, as head coach. His tenure at TCU was plagued with inconsistency, but he had some success. In 1992, his first year as head coach, Sullivan introduced a new arched TCU logo. This change to the uniforms was part of a broader plan by Sullivan and the school to replace the expectation of losing with a new look and attitude, including returning to a natural grass playing field. Since its introduction the arched TCU has become the preferred and most popular of the school's logos. In 1992 Sullivan's team finished 2–8–1, but one of their victories was a 28–14 triumph over the Texas Longhorns, which was a major accomplishment for the program at that time. The 1993 team continued to show signs of improvement, finishing 4–7. 1994 was Sullivan's best year. In the final game of that season, Sullivan led TCU to a 24–17 victory over Texas Tech before a crowd of 43,000 at Amon G. Carter Stadium. That victory propelled the Frogs to a 7–5 record and a share of the Southwest Conference title. It was the first Southwest Conference title for TCU since 1959. Invited to the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana, the Frogs lost, 20–10, to the Virginia Cavaliers. After 1994, the team regressed: the Frogs went 6–5 in 1995, the last year of the Southwest Conference. TCU struggled even more during Sullivan's final two seasons, when the team competed in the Western Athletic Conference. They finished 4–7 in 1996, and a disastrous 1–10 campaign in 1997 led to Sullivan's mid-season resignation; the lone win was in the season finale over SMU for the Iron Skillet. One of Coach Sullivan's greatest contributions to TCU was the recruitment of future NFL star running back LaDainian Tomlinson to Fort Worth.

Franchione inherited a program that had posted a very poor .323 winning percentage from 1966 to 1997. However, he immediately turned the program around. Under Dennis Franchione, and with the stellar play of backs Tomlinson and Basil Mitchell, a 6–5 TCU defeated the USC Trojans in the 1998 Sun Bowl. The high point of the Franchione era was a 10–1 regular season record, a Mobile Alabama Bowl berth vs. Southern Miss and a season-ending No. 13 AP national ranking in 2000. In the three years Coach Franchione coached TCU, his bowl record was 2–0 and he accumulated three WAC Championships. Franchione coached the entire 2000 regular season, but left for the head coaching position at the University of Alabama prior to the 2000 Mobile Alabama Bowl.

Defensive Coordinator Gary Patterson took over as head coach for the bowl game in 2000, a 28–21 loss to Southern Miss. In 2001 TCU left the WAC for Conference USA (C-USA). TCU would stay in C-USA for only four years before accepting an invitation to join the Mountain West Conference (MWC). Patterson led the Horned Frogs to six conference championships. In 2002, TCU shared the C-USA title with Cincinnati. In 2005, TCU won the MWC title their first year in the league, and the Frogs claimed additional conference crowns in 2009, 2010, and 2011, and Patterson has had a winning season every year except for 2004, 2013, and 2016, and TCU has gone to a bowl game every year except 2004 and 2013. In the 2005 Houston Bowl, played at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas, the Horned Frogs defeated the Iowa State Cyclones by a score of 27–24. In the 2006 Poinsettia Bowl TCU defeated the Northern Illinois Huskies 37–7. In 2007, the Horned Frogs returned to play in the 2007 Texas Bowl, a revival of the old Houston Bowl, and defeated the Houston Cougars, 20–13. In a return to the Poinsettia Bowl in 2008, the No. 11 Frogs defeated unbeaten No. 9 Boise State 17–16. Boise State was the second-to-last unbeaten team in the nation in 2008 besides the Utah Utes. TCU's Poinsettia Bowl victory helped them finish the 2008 season ranked No. 7 in the country.

In 2009, TCU again attained national prominence with its second undefeated regular season (12–0) and first since Dutch Meyer led the Frogs to perfection in 1938. They lost in the 2010 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl 17–10 to the Boise State Broncos, on January 4, 2010—their first major-bowl appearance since the 1959 Cotton Bowl. In the following year, the Horned Frogs capped their second consecutive perfect regular season with a win in their first Rose Bowl, a 21–19 victory over Big Ten co-champion Wisconsin on New Year's Day, 2011. This capped off only the second undefeated and untied season in school history. After going 11–2 and winning the Mountain West title again in 2011, the Horned Frogs played Louisiana Tech in the Poinsettia Bowl. TCU won 31–24 in a somewhat lackluster performance after narrowly (and somewhat controversially) missing their third BCS Bowl bid in a row. TCU finished 16th in the final BCS rankings, two slots below the cutoff for a non-AQ team to get a BCS bid. The win allowed Patterson to tie Meyer as the winningest coach in TCU history. On October 10, 2011, the TCU Board of Trustees approved an invitation to join the Big 12 Conference, and entered that conference on July 1, 2012. The move to the Big 12 was a return "home" in a sense for the Horned Frogs, as they renewed many of their in-state rivalries from the old Southwest Conference. Before the move to the Big 12, the Horned Frogs had been reckoned as one of the closest things to a major football power in a mid-major conference. Amon G. Carter Stadium, the Horned Frogs' home field since 1929, concluded large renovations prior to the 2012 season. It featured a new press box, suites, club seats and improved fan amenities in many areas—new and more comfortable seating, wider concourses, new and improved restrooms and concessions areas, handicapped-accessible accommodations, elevators and escalators to move patrons among levels, and new lighting. The stadium was used during the 2011 season while being renovated. The Horned Frogs played their first game in the renovated stadium on September 8, 2012, and routed Grambling 56–0. The win was also Patterson's 110th win with the Horned Frogs, making him the winningest coach in TCU history. TCU would finish their first regular season in the Big 12 at 7–5 before losing to Michigan State in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl 17–16.

The Horned Frogs returned to national prominence in 2014, after they finished the 2013 season with a disappointing 4–8 record. The Horned Frogs started with a 4–0 record to begin the year, with wins over Samford, SMU, No. 24-ranked Minnesota which would finish the season unranked, and rallying in the 4th quarter to beat No. 4-ranked Oklahoma, which would also finish the season unranked. After the upset of Oklahoma, the Horned Frogs rose to the No. 9 ranking going into their October 11 meeting with then No. 7-ranked Baylor. With approximately 11 minutes remaining in the game and despite Baylor leading in every offensive statistical category, TCU had a commanding 58–37 lead over the Bears. Baylor then dominated TCU by scoring 24 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to defeat the Horned Frogs 61–58. Baylor would finish the game with 782 yards of offense and 39 first downs compared to TCU's 485 yards of offense and 23 first downs. The Baylor game would be the lone loss for TCU in 2014, and despite having to rally against Big 12 bottom-dweller Kansas, they would win their remaining seven games behind the leadership of their Heisman Trophy finalist quarterback, Trevone Boykin. The Horned Frogs began to emerge as a National Championship contender after their convincing 41–20 win over then No. 7-ranked Kansas State. Despite their struggles against last-place Kansas and Oklahoma and their loss to Baylor, going into the final week of the regular season, TCU was ranked No. 3 in the newly formed College Football Playoff poll, which coincided with the new College Football Playoff system, whose format selects the Top 4 teams in the rankings at the end of the season to participate in a four-team playoff system to decide a National Champion. TCU soundly defeated Iowa State in their final regular season game to finish the 2014 season with an 11–1 record. On December 7, 2014, the final College Football Playoff rankings were released, and the Horned Frogs dropped to the No. 6 ranking in the poll, abruptly ending the Horned Frogs' National Championship hopes. TCU decimated No. 9 Ole Miss 42–3 in the Peach Bowl. Patterson resigned under pressure as TCU head coach on October 21, 2021. Assistant coach Jerry Kill finished out the season as the team's interim head coach.

On November 26, 2021, SMU head coach Sonny Dykes left to take over the rival TCU football program as head coach. Dykes also has head coaching experience at Louisiana Tech and California and signed a six-year contract with the Horned Frogs.

In his first season, Dykes went 12–0 before losing to Kansas State in the Big 12 Championship Game. The Horned Frogs finished 12–1 and ranked 3rd in the College Football Playoff rankings. They beat the Michigan Wolverines in the college football semi-final on December 31, 2022, 51–45. They played the Georgia Bulldogs in the College Football Playoff National Championship on January 9, 2023, with the Bulldogs coming out victorious 65–7 to win their second title in a row.