Everything to know about TCU: Name, history, mascot and more

First and foremost, let’s be clear and upfront. This column is not intended for TCU students, faculty or alumni. Neither is it for the Fort Worthians who adore all things purple.

With the TCU Horned Frogs advancing to the national college football championship on Jan. 9, all things TCU are becoming more popular.

This column’s purpose is for the social media audience and the global internet searchers who are just discovering that TCU exists. Quite frankly, it’s intended for the Georgia Bulldogs crowd, their fans and their followers, as well as other college football fans who may tune in to the championship game. Hence, stealing the title from the book series’ first author, Dan Gookin, here’s “Everything to know about TCU for dummies,’’ which is intended for those eager to learn all things TCU.

TCU: Texas Christian University. The private university, founded in 1873 by brothers Addison and Randolph Clark, is chiefly a research and liberal arts school.

Enrollment: Unlike many of the state-run universities that are bigger than many cities, TCU is one of the smaller schools in all of NCAA Division I athletics. It’s enrollment for the fall semester was 10,523, and its graduate enrollment was 1,250. Unlike those big state universities, you really do get to know your classmates and your professors. How does that compare to the University of Georgia? In the fall of 2022, there were more than 330,000 students enrolled in Georgia campuses across their state, including 30,000 at the main Athens campus.

Location: Located in the beautiful city of Fort Worth, population 935,508, in the county of Tarrant County (which is the home of the Dallas Cowboys, the Texas Rangers) which mixes the history of its cattle stockyards with today’s present-day needs of aerospace and defense contractors.

The mascot: The beloved Horned Frog. There’s only one Horned Frog mascot in all of the 350-plus NCAA Division I schools. By the way, Georgia is one of 43 NCAA schools — including 15 in Division I — that use the Bulldog as their mascot.

The conference: TCU has played in the Big 12 since 2012, previously playing in the Mountain West (2005-11), Conference USA (2001-04), the Western Athletic Conference (1996-2000), the Southwest Conference (1923-95), the Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association (1914-1920).

The first: TCU is the first of the 12 state of Texas NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools to advance to the College Football Playoffs.

The season: The Horned Frogs were predicted to finish in seventh place in the Big 12’s preseason media poll. They went 12-0 during the regular season, lost to Kansas State in overtime in the Big 12 championship, then beat Michigan 51-45 in the College Football Playoff semifinals (in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl).

National titles: TCU has won two NCAA football titles (1935, 1938).

The coach: Sonny Dykes was hired in December 2021. A year later, he was named national coach of the year by many media outlets, the NCAA and the Big 12. He previously coached at Louisiana Tech, California and SMU. He has a career 84-64 head coaching record.

Famous alumni: Among the more than 98,000 TCU alumni, Davey O’Brien, Sam Baugh, Bob Lilly and LaDainian Tomlinson are famous football alums. The school has many other noteworthy graduates, including journalists Dan Jenkins and Bob Schieffer, best-selling author Sue Monk Kidd, many politicians and Forbes Top 500 businessmen and women — and of course, Roy Hinkley, the professor from the Gilligan’s Island TV show.