News

• TCU enters the Valero Alamo Bowl with an 8–4 overall record (5–4 Big 12).

• Two of TCU’s four losses this season came by three points or fewer.

• The Horned Frogs are led by head coach Sonny Dykes, one of only four active coaches to lead four different programs to bowl games. The 2022 National Coach of the Year is also one of just six active head coaches to have coached in the College Football Playoff National Championship game.

• TCU finished the regular season ranked No. 8 nationally in passing behind quarterback Josh Hoover. For the bowl game, the Horned Frogs turn to sixth-year senior Ken Seals, a former three-year starter at Vanderbilt. Seals finished his SEC career as Vanderbilt’s all-time leader in completion percentage (60.5 percent), seventh in passing yards (4,292), and ninth in passing touchdowns (28).

• Safety Bud Clark has four interceptions this season and 15 in his TCU career. With an interception in the Valero Alamo Bowl, he’ll be tied for 2^nd in TCU history. The all-time school mark is 18, while the bowl record is two set by four different players most recently Michigan’s Leon Hall in 2005

• Wide receiver Eric McAlister produced one of the finest seasons in program history, ranking second on TCU’s single-season receiving yards list with 1,121 yards. McAlister recorded six 100-yard games, tying Josh Doctson’s 2015 program record, and finished the season with 64 receptions, 1,121 yards, and 10 touchdowns.
  
• Running back Jeremy Payne enters the Valero Alamo Bowl with back-to-back 100-yard rushing performances. The last TCU running back to record three consecutive 100-yard games was Kendre Miller in 2022.
  
• The Horned Frogs backfield also includes Kevorian Barnes who notched two 100-yard rushing games after a four-year career at USTA where he totaled 1,797 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns.
  
• Safety Bud Clark has four interceptions this season and 15 in his TCU career. With an interception in the Valero Alamo Bowl, he’ll be tied for 2^nd in TCU history. The all-time school mark is 18, while the bowl record is two set by four different players most recently Michigan’s Leon Hall in 2005.

• TCU is 19–16–1 all-time in bowl games and a perfect 2–0 in the Valero Alamo Bowl. Only Nebraska (3–0) and Texas (4–2) have more Valero Alamo Bowl victories.

• TCU owns some of the most memorable moments in Valero Alamo Bowl history:
  • Ten years ago in 2015, TCU rallied from a 31-point halftime deficit after head coach Gary Patterson swapped shirts (from black to purple) but not quarterbacks at halftime and defeated Oregon 47-41 in triple overtime, tying the largest comeback in NCAA bowl history.
  • A sellout crowd of 64,569 attended the game, while 7.4 million watched on ESPN which is the fifth highest viewership in Valero Alamo Bowl history.
  • Quarterback Bram Kohlhausen, in his only career college start, replaced Trevone Boykin, and earned offensive MVP honors as he threw for 351 yards and accounted for four touchdowns including the game-winning touchdown run in the third overtime.
  • In 2017, TCU erased a 21–3 second-quarter deficit to defeat No. 15 Stanford 39–37 on a 33-yard Cole Bunce field goal with 3:07 remaining.

• The 2025 Valero Alamo Bowl marks the sixth all-time meeting between USC and TCU and their first matchup in 27 years. USC leads the series 3–2.

• TCU won the most recent meeting, a 28–19 victory in the 1998 Sun Bowl. That win was TCU’s first bowl victory in 41 years, as the Horned Frogs held USC to a Sun Bowl-record minus-23 rushing yards.

• The game features coaches with deep ties to each other and to the Valero Alamo Bowl:
  • Sonny Dykes’ Valero Alamo Bowl connection dates back to his father, Spike Dykes, who coached Texas Tech in the 1996 game. They are the first father-son duo to coach in the Valero Alamo Bowl.
  • In 2001, Sonny Dykes was the Wide Receivers Coach for Texas Tech when they lost 19-16 to Iowa. The game ended when Hawkeye defensive back and future NFL All-Pro Bob Sanders intercepted a Kliff Kingsbury pass in the end zone on the final play.
  • Sonny Dykes served as an offensive analyst for TCU in 2017 helping guide the Horned Frogs to a 10-2 regular season. He accepted the head coaching job at SMU prior the Valero Alamo Bowl so he was not in San Antonio for their 39-37 win over Stanford. TCU QB Kenny Hill, the game’s offensive MVP, is co-offensive coordinator and running backs coach for the University of the Incarnate Word football team in San Antonio
  • Riley and Dykes first crossed paths at Texas Tech, where Riley was a player and Dykes served as wide receivers coach. They later worked together when Dykes became co-offensive coordinator under Mike Leach.
  • Both were members of Leach’s Texas Tech staff that engineered a NCCA postseason record 31-point comeback against Minnesota in the 2006 Insight Bowl that was tied by TCU’s 2015 Valero Alamo Bowl comeback against Oregon.