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TCU and
Golden Eagles Battle to Stay Alive
By RALPH D. RUSSO
AP Sports Writer
HATTIESBURG, MS (AP) � Houston or
bust.
Texas Christian and Southern
Mississippi play the second-to-last game of the Division I-A regular season
Friday night with a bid to the galleryfurniture.com Bowl in Houston going to
the winner.
For the loser, the off-season
begins.
``It's kind of like high school
football in the playoffs,'' Southern Miss quarterback Jeff Kelly said. ``You
win, you keep playing. You lose you go home.''
And for seniors such as Kelly,
who knows when their next football game will be.
``To have the opportunity to have
such a big game to end your career is great,'' he said.
Both teams also have streaks on
the line.
Southern Miss (6-4) has been to a
bowl game four straight seasons. TCU (5-5) is looking for its fourth
straight winning season, something it hasn't done since the 1950s.
The Golden Eagles hoped they
would have a bowl bid locked up by now. Had they beaten Alabama last week
they would have received a bid to the GMAC Bowl in Mobile. Even with a loss,
Southern Miss was expected to land in Houston.
But when the Golden Eagles lost,
they were left empty handed when GMAC Bowl officials opted to extend
Conference USA's automatic bid to 6-5 East Carolina, a team which they had
defeated on the Pirates' home field the week before the clash with the
Crimson Tide.
Still, at least one Southern Miss
player put a positive spin on the turn of events.
``This is the best scenario,''
safety Chad Williams said. ``If you want something real bad you have to go
out and get it.''
TCU had also crossed paths with
East Carolina in its journey to the showdown in Hattiesburg, getting
temporarily knocked off its course to the post-season in an October 30 loss
in Ft. Worth to the enigmatic Pirates.
But the Frogs hopped back into
the middle of the action two weeks ago with a 37-22 victory over C-USA
champion Louisville to put yet another wrinkle into the league's bowl
picture.
Having the Horned Frogs play
Texas A&M in the Astrodome on December 28 became tempting for the
two-year-old bowl game, looking to match former Southwestern Conference
rivals.
TCU and Southern Miss met last
year in the GMAC Bowl, when the Horned Frogs were a member of the Western
Athletic Conference.
Kelly threw two touchdowns in the
fourth quarter, including the game-winner in the closing seconds, to lift
the Golden Eagles to a 28-21 victory.
It was a tough way for Gary
Patterson to begin his head coaching career. He took over when Dennis
Franchione was hired by Alabama.
``As a new head coach you
wouldn't want to lose your first game on a deep vertical route with 8
seconds left,'' he said. ``The biggest thing to me is to have a winning
season and go to a bowl game, not revenge.''
Under Patterson, TCU has some new
names, but a familiar look. The biggest change has been on offense, where
the focus has shifted to quarterback Casey Printers with running back
LaDanian Tomlinson now in the NFL.
``The quarterback is the most
dangerous player on that team,'' Williams said. ``They're running the same
offense just with a little more passing.''
The mobile Printers has thrown
for 1,550 yards and 12 touchdowns, but the offense has been unable to find
balance without Tomlinson.
The running game finally got
revved up against Louisville with 178 yards.
``My hats off to the offense.
They have taken a lot of criticism all year,'' Patterson said. ``We were
able to run the ball and control the line of scrimmage.''
The Golden Eagles have had a
similar season offensively, looking sharp at times and sloppy at others. But
they rank first in the league in scoring defense and second in total
defense.
AP-NY-12-06-01 1756EST
Copyright 2001
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
02/23/2007 10:47:44 AM
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