Fort Worth, Texas – A merciful ending. Decisive. No room for consolation. No room for doubt.
Texas Christian, employing an aggressive offense and a rugged defense, bounced Air Force’s unraveling football season right off the bottom with a hard thud Saturday at Amon Carter Stadium.
After dismantling the Falcons 38-14 in the final regular-season game for both, the Horned Frogs (10-2) are off to the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego. For the Falcons, it’s back home to cold and snowy Colorado Springs and a workshop aimed at putting back together a once-proud program that ended the season at 4-8 and well down the Mountain West Conference standings.
The Horned Frogs jumped out to a 38-0 lead through three quarters as quarterback Jeff Ballard mesmerized an almost helpless Air Force defense. He finished the game 20-of-25 for 220 yards and a touchdown. His passes connected to 10 receivers, but it was his 14-yard touchdown pass to Quentil Harmon that best told the story of the game. Harmon’s catch completed a 19-play, 97-yard march that took 7:03 to complete and put the Horned Frogs up 21-0 in the second quarter.
Frustrated Air Force coach Fisher DeBerry refused to comment after the game on whether he’ll return for a 24th season, but it was obvious that he had seen enough of this year. The setback was the fourth in a row and completed a third straight losing season.
“We got whipped in all three phases of the game,” DeBerry said. “This game is blocking and tackling. We didn’t tackle very well at all. We felt like we had to mix it up offensively, and that’s what we tried to do. Obviously, we didn’t do a very good job of protecting our quarterback. It’s so frustrating for us to down the ball on the (3-yard line) and then let them drive the distance of the field. The bottom line is that somewhere we had to force a mistake.”
TCU compiled 21 first downs, converted 9-of-15 third-down chances, had nearly seven minutes of possession time advantage and ran 19 more offensive plays.
Air Force quarterback Shaun Carney, who completed only 4-of-10 passes for 44 yards and suffered through a game of minus-16 yards rushing, acknowledged that TCU’s dominance left little doubt Air Force football has no place to go but up.
“We know where we have to go,” Carney said. “Give credit to TCU. Their defense is pretty good. They were better than us. It’s a good start to say that we lost to a good football team and not like we went out there and lost to San Diego State and UNLV, as we did earlier.”
While Ballard had the TCU offense moving, the Horned Frogs’ defense was like a barrier. The Falcons had only 87 yards of total offense through three quarters. Air Force chipped in four turnovers, three on fumbles.
With reserve quarterback Jim Ollis providing a spark, Air Force finished with 142 yards of total offense, with 98 yards on the ground.
Ollis scored the game’s last touchdown on a 19-yard run with 2:40 remaining. Earlier in the fourth quarter, the Falcons averted a shutout when Adam Zanotti blocked Derek Walsh’s punt and strong safety Hunter Altman returned it 15 yards for a touchdown.
THE GRADES
Offense
D: Shaun Carney was stopped for 25 yards of losses. When an option quarterback has minus-16 yards net rushing, enough said.
Defense
D: When the opposing team scores points on its first six possessions, it’s time for a refresher course. TCU’s first punt of the game was in the last minute of the third quarter.
Special teams
D: A blocked punt each way kind of evens things out. The Falcons averted an F by scoring a touchdown on their blocked punt.
Overall
D: After gaining just 142 yards of total offense and surrendering the first 38 points of the game, it’s time to move on. The move is to step back and regroup.
Irv Moss can be reached at 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com.
