Throw Back Thursday: The TCU-Gophers Connection

First Things First

So today was going to be a profile of the one and only heart-a-pumpin, corpuscles-a-jumpin, Jim Wacker. The memorable Coach Wacker coached both TCU (1983 to 1991) and the Gophers (1992-1996).

I had a lot of great stuff but that SOB Tom Powers beat me to it. What Tommy P doesn't have is a geezo beezo picture with those awesome Apex jerseys or a solid youtube video of Jim in his TCU days pumping his boys up in the locker room.

The 1974 Gophers and Horned Frogs Matchup

There is another Minnesota/TCU football connection, an actual game played by the two teams back in 1974. Even though it was almost exactly 40 years ago there are some striking parallels.

TCU came to Memorial Stadium with the Gophers under some heavy criticism having only beaten North Dakota 42-30 the previous week. Sophomore QB Tony Dungy had separated his shoulder against North Dakota and his status was uncertain. The quarterback situation behind Dungy was two unproven freshman Corey Olsen and Marc Trestman (who?).

Tony Dungy scrambling (and probably getting sacked) in the 1st half of the 1974 Minnesota vs TCU game.

Despite the Gophers offense struggling against a good TCU defense, all three Gopher QB's played in the game and combined for just enough to get past the Horned Frogs. The final score was 9-7, and the narrow victory lead to some interesting comments.

"God bless TCU" Coach Stol told reporters, "They remind me a lot of my teams at Wake Forest. Small, but scrappy as the devil. They never gave up. I really like them." (Minneapolis Star, Sunday September 29, 1974).

Indeed, TCU missed a field goal with 12 seconds left that would have won them the game.

Talking about the haters who booed the Gophers, Tony Dungy addressed the lack of offense, "I don't care if the score of all the rest of our games is 9-7, just so long as we win them all." (Minnesota Daily, Monday September 30, 1974)

And it's important to mention that both schools had mascots in the 1970s that looked like this:

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