TCU Sonny Dykes Georgia

ATHENS —The glass slipper no longer fits TCU football, per Coach Sonny Dykes.

“The question about the Cinderella thing, I think for a while in some ways we probably viewed ourselves as that early on, because we were figuring this thing out,” said Dykes, the first-year coach of a Horned Frogs team that was picked to finish seventh in the Big 12 coming off a 5-7 season.

“I think the Cinderella label probably started to wear off a little bit after the three-game gauntlet where we had to play three or four on the road, West Virginia, Texas and Baylor.

“I think at that point our guys started to believe, okay, we’re a real football team and we’re a battle-hardened team and we’ve had to overcome some adversity. And you know what? We have a chance to make a run.”

Still, people can and will talk about Georgia being a two-touchdown favorite over a Horned Frogs’ roster void of the sort of 5-star talent the Bulldogs bring in annually.

But they can’t — or at least, shouldn’t — talk about the TCU 2022 season resume entering into the CFP Championship Game at 7:30 p.m. next Monday at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif.

The Horned Frogs had more wins over ranked opponents (6) than Georgia (4), and they led wire-to-wire in beating Big Ten champion Michigan51-45 in the CFP Fiesta Bowl Semifinal.

The Bulldogs, later that night, scrambled to come from behind against Ohio State in the CFP Peach Bowl Semifinal and held on for dear life as the Buckeyes’ missed a potential game-winning field goal from 50 yards in the final seconds.

TCU’s success this season has led to a level of confidence and buy-in to Dykes and his coaching staff that Kirby Smart compared to Georgia’s earlier on Tuesday.

“I think the Oklahoma game is when we saw, okay, look, here’s what we’re capable of because we played really good football on all three sides of the ball,” said Dykes, whose Horned Frogs beat the Sooners by a 55-24 count the fourth game of the season.

“We played great offense, great defense, great special teams in that game. It was a bit of an eye-opener for me, honestly because we played okay up to that point. We felt we were playing against really good competition.”

Dykes knew there would be more tests ahead.

“Fortunately, Oklahoma State rolled around right after that, and we were down 17, and we had to rally,” Dykes said.

“And I think that was, to me, that was just a big a moment for our football team was seeing how we were going to do when we were down.”

TCU had earned so much respect by going undefeated in the regular season that the program was able to sustain a 31-28 loss to Kansas State in the Big 12 Championship Game and still make the four-team CFP.

At that, the CFP Committee kept the Horned Frogs ranked ahead of an Ohio State team featuring likely future NFL franchise quarterback C.J. Stroud that had entered the season ranked No. 2.

“They have done so many little things the right way, and done things that people at other schools aren’t doing,” Dykes said, sharing the winning edge his Horned Frogs have found.

“I think they’ve gained confidence from all those things, and I think it’s made them just believe in each other. So they feel like the moment’s not too big.”