TCU Football: Max Duggan Wins The Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award

TCU's quarterback Max Duggan was named late Wednesday as the recipient of the 2022 Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award. The award is presented to a player who was either born in Texas, graduated from a state high school, or plays at a Texas-based University. Duggan is in good company, the second Horned Frog to receive the award, joining the 2014 recipient Trevone Boykin.

Duggan led the TCU Horned Frogs to their first College Football Playoff Appearance and earned a trip to the CFP National Championship after a 51-45 victory over Michigan in the CFP Semifinal at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl. He racked up 282 yards of offense and four touchdowns in the win over the Wolverines.

Duggan has earned at received many other awards this season. He was the recipient of the Davey O’Brien Award and Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award and runner-up for the Heisman Trophy. Duggan was also named to multiple All-America teams. In addition, he was the Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year and a unanimous First-Team All-Big 12 selection.

Max Duggan has made not only national history but also school history. Duggan's 32 touchdown passes and 41 touchdowns responsible for (32 passing, nine rushing) both rank second for a season at TCU, behind only the TCU great Trevone Boykin (33, 2014; 42, 2014). Duggan's 73 career touchdown passes put him in second place on TCU's career list, trailing Boykin (86), while his 28 rushing touchdowns are tied for sixth.

This season Duggan was 16th in the nation in passing efficiency with a 159.2 rating. He tied for the national lead among Power 5 quarterbacks with 17 touchdown passes of at least 20 yards and accounted for three or more touchdowns in nine games this season.

Let's put this in perspective - a Council Bluffs, Iowa, native, a player who was not supposed to start this season, led the Big 12 in passing efficiency, touchdown passes, passing yards (3,698), yards per attempt (8.9) and yards per completion (13.9). Many doubted him, but I am proud to say I was a Duggan fan from the beginning.

Duggan has been winning over fans since his very first start; however, the Big 12 Championship is where the nation saw who he was. Duggan keyed TCU's furious fourth-quarter comeback against Kansas State in the Big 12 Championship Game, leading a pair of scoring drives to force overtime after an 11-point deficit in the final seven minutes. He became the first player with 250 passing yards and 100 rushing in a conference championship game since Deshaun Watson in 2015. Made possible because of a TCU penalty, he rushed for 95 yards on the game-tying 80-yard drive. He had a 19-yard run on a 4th-and-2 and a 40-yard gain to set up his 8-yard scoring run on the next snap. He then completed a pass to Jared Wiley for the 2-point conversion. Duggan is a selfless player who sacrifices himself for his team and school. He is a person and player we all desire to be more like.

Another game that allowed Max to show the nation what he is about is the game against Baylor. In the 29-28 win at Baylor, Duggan led fourth-quarter scoring drives on TCU's final two possessions without its leading rusher Kendre Miller and top-two receivers Quentin Johnston and Derius Davis. The game-winning drive also came with TCU not having any timeouts available. Max completed 7-of-9 passes for 83 yards while rushing four times for 33 yards on the two drives.

With a 73-yard touchdown pass to Taye Barber and a 67-yard scoring run just 1:18 apart against Oklahoma, Duggan became just the second player nationally in the last 15 years and first since Lamar Jackson in 2016 with a touchdown pass and touchdown run of at least 60 yards in the first quarter of a game.

As you can see, Max broke all sorts of records and won many awards this season, but I don't think Max ever thought of how he could break records. Instead, his mentality was how can I help my team succeed.

Max Duggan and TCU earned every minute of this journey, and when people start to say they didn't, ignore them. Horned Frog fans and I cannot thank Max Duggan enough for putting our team back to where it once was and arguably better than ever. Thank you, Max, for giving us more than we could have asked for and giving us somewhere to be on Christmas break. Don't let the Georgia loss define you or this team. Now go kill it in the NFL; you will always be a Horned Frog for life.

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