LISTEN! KillerFrogs Podcast Episode 183: Give 'Em Kell, TCU! (Featuring Abby And Steve Faber)
Second half comebacks this season are nothing new to this TCU team, but on Saturday with the final seconds of the game ticking away and down 2 points to Baylor it appeared that the clock on the Frogs undefeated season was about to run out. But, what happened in those final seconds will go down as one of the greatest finishes in TCU Football history as TCU escapes Baylor 29-28 in dramatic fashion. Shannon (Brazzell), Nathan (Hernandez), Sean (Foushee), and Ryann (Zeller) talk about the game and joining them with an update to a story that touched all Frog fans are special guests Abby Faber and her father Steve.
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1:01:58
1The Podcast begins by introducing Abby Faber and her father, Steve, both Iowa State fans. Abby is now “fourteen, in eighth grade,” and, according to her father, as a teenager, “one of the good ones, simple, a piece of cake.” She is looking forward to Thanksgiving at her grandmother’s, and particularly the family pie. She and her father are huge TCU baseball fans—Iowa State doesn’t have a baseball team. She is in good health; had a doctor’s appointment, and she did not require surgery. According to her father, “Surgery is her big fear every time we go up there, that the doctor is going to say she has to go up there. We think we’re out of the woods on that stuff, because she’s pretty much done growing, and that’s the biggest thing for her. She’s had enough surgeries to last a lifetime . . . when she was five, she had a back surgery . . . after that, a couple surgeries on both legs. Be thankful your kids don’t have to deal with that stuff.” When asked whether, in 2015, after coming off the field, she had any idea what a phenomenal effect if would have in her life, she says: “No.” To this day, her father sometimes goes back and reads material from the time, amazed by the publicity; he says at one point he had “The Ellen Show” call his house.
Foushee encourages us KillerFrogs listeners to “reach out to them, if you can, and give them well wishes, because that was exciting news we just heard.”
In other exciting news, Nick Howard is happy with a new recruit to the TCU football team, saying: "Everybody’s seen the deal about the big guy from Garland Texas. Markis Deal. That kid, I met him, when he came into the Inside High School Sports Show. Got to meet the kid, watched him play against Garland High. Kid is very good with his hands. Definitely being a guard, he’s 6’6”, but if he gets his feet work down, I definitely see him playing Left Tackle. Definitely making big bucks in his future. He’s a four-star recruit, a great pickup for the Frogs.”
Regarding Deal, Foushee mentions that “the offensive line has been phenomenal, given all they’ve done, but that is definitely a unit that could use a little depth, and he certainly brings it, and that’s exciting to see.”
The conversation turns to the game against Baylor, in which Shannon Brazzell shares a highly amusing story about how he was not able to see the game. He was driving his car and his phone was blowing up. He requested his wife to TiVo the game. He scrolled through messages, found out we won, went home and watched the game. “But here’s the kicker: I go home and watch the game, and it’s like no one told me that they won. Because when watching the game, I was sweating ball . . . excuse me, I was sweating bullets, and I’ve already known who’s won the game, but that’s how phenomenal the game was . . . I was watching the game and was like ‘quit tripping, quit tripping, you know who wins the game,’ but I was trippin! . . . It’s our type of season for us. I don’t know, my heart can’t take too much more of this.”
Foushee: “That’s the most nerve-racking and exciting ending to a game I’ve ever seen. Ever. Nathan and I are up there in the pressbox, and it’s right after that missed extra point. We’re up 20-14. Nathan is moaning, ‘Oh my gosh, extra points. I hope that doesn’t come back to kill us.’ I was like maybe we’re just setting up a last second dramatic field goal to end the game. To payback Baylor. I wasn’t being prophetic. I was just trying to be funny.”
The discussion turns to Griffin Kell. Foushee describes the situation thus: “Kell . . . man, everyone else was running on, he kind of nonchalantly jogs out there, finds a spot, looks up and says: ‘yeah, this is good,’ and nails it. But from a strategic standpoint it made sense.”
Ryann Zeller adds some fascinating detail regarding the “bazooka” play: “The play’s called “bazooka,” but there are only two coaches who can call it, the special team’s coach and the head coach. Kell was the last one to run on because he was still practicing. He didn’t know they were going to call that particular play. So he was kind of late getting there on the field . . . They said they practice it every Thursday and he’s maybe missed once. They’ve done it twelve to fifteen times, and he’s maybe missed once.”
Brazzell adds perspective from a veteran: “Those are the types of bullets at this time of year you’ve got to have in your chamber because at the end of the day . . . they’ve got other plays like that in their arsenal, you can believe that, because it depends on what type of situation you’re in the game that you’re going to have to pull those out. So in that situation we needed three points to win it, so that’s what it took. But there’s also onside kicks, and other things they’re working on for the scenario in the game . . . it just looked like they practiced that.”
Bringing Nathan Hernandez into the discussion, Foushee asks if he has heard from any of his 2014 teammates about the Baylor game. Hernandez briefly mentions Trevone (Boykin)"Yeah. And actually, I don’t mean to backtrack on the conversation, but I was on that team, Abby, and I know that it was Trevone that did the thing. Since then he’s gotten into a little trouble. But I saw him before the Texas Tech game. He’s doing a lot better, he’s on a good track now. He’s training to play again. I just want to let everyone know he’s doing better than where he was.”
Hernandez then addresses the Baylor game: “My hands were shaking, I didn’t know what to do. I’ve been a part of winning these before, but I literally . . . I had gotten PTSD from when the Cowboys lost to the 49ers, and I thought we were going to lose, but it happened, we won. As little hope as you can possibly have for something to happen was that situation. You have almost . . . it’s like when they show the Probability Wins and it’s like 99.999 percent probability that you lose and it just shoots down . . . every little thing in that game was like payback for 2014.”
The discussion ends with Iowa State. Steve Faber feels confident in Iowa State’s defense, less so their offense, despite that the talent is there. Brazzell agrees with him, promising “a great defense game . . . and once again I’m gonna keep saying this till the cows come home, it’s not going to be pretty, we’ve just got to find a way to win. We’re gonna get everyone’s best shot.”
Faber says: “I think they’ve lost six games this year by one score. And I can think of three . . . if they catch a pass in three games, they'd have won. Who knows? If they catch one of those balls, who knows if that doesn’t flip their season around. They’re that close. I’m betting that if you look at the stats for the games, I would bet that Iowa State out-games every opponent because their defense is so good. They just can’t seem to make the play when they need to. And then they get penalties that just kill you.”
Foushee is equally optimistic about the quality of Iowa State’s team. “This is the one I’ve had circled for weeks, because for whatever reason I feel very uncomfortable about this game and have for a long time. I love your program, what you stand for. The way that your team always comes together. And the family atmosphere that you have at Iowa State, I absolutely love that. And I hate that those kids don’t get a bowl game this year, but, man, you guys scare me. They really do.”
Faber replies: “It’s that old ‘do’ factor. They haven’t put it together. And I’ll be flat-out honest with you, I hope they don’t do it this weekend. If it comes down to having to beat TCU to go to a bowl game, or TCU to go to the playoffs, we’re going to root for TCU that weekend. You know? It would be great for our guys to go, without a doubt. It would be great to have those fifteen extra practices, which is what this group really needs, you know. But it would also be nice to have someone from our Big 12 who actually wants to be in the Big 12, who doesn’t think their you-know-what’s to good for somebody and tell these people who think they know it all, the PAC 12 isn’t what you think they are. The SEC has two good teams. The rest are like everybody else. I’d like to see somebody like TCU prove everybody wrong.”
The Podcast concludes with predictions for Saturday’s game against Iowa State.
Zeller predicts: 16-13, TCU
Hernandez: 25-19, TCU
Brazzell: 21-17, TCU
Steve Farber: 13-10, TCU
Abby Farber: (thinks TCU is going to win)
Foushee: 24-13, TCU
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