TCU took on the USC Trojans of the Big Ten in the Valero Alamo Bowl on Tuesday night on ESPN. The Horned Frogs were coming off an 8-4 campaign under head coach Sonny Dykes, while USC entered the season with a 9-3 record and ranked No. 16 in the country. Last year, it was an all-Big 12 match up between BYU and Colorado, as the game still has a Pac-12 tie in with Colorado representing the conference last year, and USC this year. TCU holds a 3-2 edge all-time vs. USC, with their last meeting coming in 1998 when TCU won 28-19 in the Sun Bowl.
On Tuesday night in San Antonio, it was the TCU beating USC in overtime 30-27. Here are the top three takeaways from the game.
Overtime in Alamo City
The Horned Frogs played a strong first half, leading 14-13 at the break thanks to back-to-back touchdown drives in the second quarter, along with a bend-but-don’t-break defense that held the Trojans to a pair of field goals and had an interception.
But for much of the second half, it was a different story. TCU had too many self-inflicted wounds, with a turnover, bad penalties, and Ken Seals looking more and more like a back up who has played limited reps during his two years in Fort Worth. On the other side, USC quarterback Jayden Maiava got more comfortable as the game progressed. He was missing his top two targets who opted out of the game, but once he got in a rhythm with some of the new faces stepping up, USC’s offense got on more of a roll and took a 24-14 lead early in the fourth quarter.
However, TCU’s offense woke up in the second half of fourth quarter, scoring 10 unanswered points on their final two drives to tie the game at 24. An 11-play, 75-yard drive capped off by a Jeremy Payne touchdown and then an 13-play, 59-yard drive ended in a field goal to end regulation.
In overtime, USC had a first and goal at the two-yard line and TCU was able to hold the Trojans to a field goal. TCU then got hosed by the officials on a play that was called a catch by Joseph Manjack, which was overturned, but then on a 3rd and 20, running back Jeremy Payne finished a walk-off win for the Horned Frogs to win the Alamo Bowl 30-27.
Bud Clark is College Football
The game aside, Bud Clark is one of those players that I’ll miss watching play college football. The long-time safety for the Horned Frogs has been an All-Big 12 player for the bulk of his career, and in a transfer portal era, he has stayed at TCU the entire time. We’ve watched him develop from a four-star prospect to redshirt year to a redshirt freshman season where he had five interceptions as TCU reached the National Championship. Then, he became a team captain the following year and has remained a highly-productive player for the Frogs. And while Bud Clark has NFL aspirations, and will get drafted in the spring, he was out there in what many dub a “meaningless” game, playing for his teammates and leading his defense.
And Clark had two huge pass break ups before halftime that single-handedly saved three points. These were two athletic plays from the safety who reacted like he was playing in the College Football Playoff three years ago.
This was college football at its best. And in an era where everyone is told to avoid games like this to avoid injury, what if Bud Clark made himself hundreds of thousands of dollars by raising his draft stock for the right team on Tuesday night? We’ll never know, but it’s a conversation worth having. And as someone who follows college football, the players like Bud Clark are becoming less frequent, and that’s a shame.
Jeremy Payne Enters Offseason With Hype
With Kevorian Barnes dealing with injuries down the stretch of the 2025 season and not meeting expectations, Jeremy Payne stepped up in a big way. And for those who weren’t paying attention and maybe turned on a TCU game for the first time in a long time, you watched the future of the TCU backfield burst onto the scene to the rest of the nation.
Payne finished with 13 carries for 73 yards and one touchdown, along with six catches for 50 yards and the game-winning touchdown catch. But for TCU fans, this was nothing new. Payne ended the regular season with back-to-back 100-yard games, racking up 103 yards in a win vs. Houston and then 174 yards and two touchdowns in a win over Cincinnati.
The former four-star prospect in the Class of 2024 may have also made himself some more money on Tuesday night with the rest of the college football world watching his performance. Like it or not, that’s the world we find ourselves in today.
