In the fall of 2005, the OU football program was still stinging from the 55-19 shellacking the Sooners suffered in the BCS Championship loss to Southern California in the previous season.
It wasn’t so much that Oklahoma lost in the national championship game, but the way the Sooners lost that was the most painful to take. OU fans were hopeful of seeing a second undefeated season and another national title from Bob Stoops’ troops, but it just wasn’t to happen.
Even though it had suffered some heavy losses to graduation, including Heisman Trophy winner Jason White, standout wide receiver Mark Clayton and a number of other All-Big 12 players, Oklahoma entered the 2005 season ranked in the nation’s top 10 in the Associated Press preseason poll and with high hopes for another successful season.
The Sooners opened the season at home in Norman against TCU. The Horned Frogs were 5-6 the previous season and finished in the middle of the pack in their final year as a member of Conference USA. They came to Norman with a new conference affiliation the Mountain West Conference.
Despite being separated by just 185 road miles, the two schools had played each other only nine times prior to the 2005 game. The Sooners had won six of the nine games, but all three of the losses had been games played in Norman, where OU was 1-3 all-time against the Horned Frogs.
It was Gary Patterson’s sixth season as the TCU head coach, and he had his team believing in themselves and ready to play when they came to Norman to open the 2005 college football season.
TCU’s game plan was fairly simple: Stop OU sophomore sensation Adrian Peterson and make quarterback Paul Thompson beat them in his first career start.
The Horned Frogs tallied 10 points in the second quarter on a 16-yard touchdown pass by senior quarterback Tye Gunn and a 25-yard field goal for the only scoring in the first half and took a 10-0 lead into halftime.
The Sooners managed to even the score at 10-all in the third quarter, but it was at a cost. Peterson injured his ankle in the third quarter and was forced to the sidelines. He was able to return to the game in the fourth quarter, but with his ankle heavily taped.
A fourth-quarter fumble by OU backup quarterback Rhett Butler, one of four by the Sooners on the afternoon, was recovered at the Oklahoma 17-yard line. Four plays later, the Horned Frogs were in the end zone on a two-yard run by running back Robert Merrill, which proved to be the winning margin in a 17-10 TCU upset victory.
Coach Bob Stoops was still smarting from the loss several years later, recalling to Oklahoma City Oklahoman staff writer John Helsely that they (TCU) out-toughed us, out-physicaled us, coached a lot better and had their players a whole lot better prepared than we did.
Peterson ended the game with just 63 rushing yards on 22 carries and Thompson was 11 for 26 passing for a measly 109 yards. Mission accomplished by TCU.
After the game, the media were calling the TCU upset win over No. 7 Oklahoma the biggest by the school in 45 years. The last time a TCU team had beaten a team as highly ranked as the Sooners was in 1960, when the Horned Frogs upset then-7th-ranked Baylor.
Oklahoma has won the last three games against TCU in Norman (2008, 2013 and 2015). Two of those three victories were decided by three or fewer points. On Saturday, the Sooners will try to extend that streak to four consecutive wind when the top two teams at the top of the Big 12 standings battle it out for conference supremacy.