Can the No. 10 Cougars solve their Fort Worth woes?

FORT WORTH, Texas — As No. 10 BYU has prepared the last two weeks to put its undefeated season on the line against TCU on Saturday, coaches have delivered one history lesson after another to the 3-0 Cougars.

Generally, BYU’s experiences at Amon G. Carter Stadium have been forgettable, including three years ago when the Cougars were also coming off a bye week and facing a quarterback making his first career start, Josh Hoover. The redshirt freshman threw for 439 yards and four touchdowns and TCU welcomed BYU to the Big 12 with a 44-11 beatdown in front of 44,599 sun-drenched fans.

Saturday’s weather conditions are expected to be quite different — forecasts call for a 75% chance for rain — and the teams are obviously a lot different. But BYU’s offensive and defensive coordinators, Aaron Roderick and Kelly Poppinga, are warning the Cougars that the 2026 version of the Horned Frogs is fully capable of ruining BYU’s perfect season.

“For sure, yeah. I gave them a little history lesson today about just my experiences playing against TCU over the years,” said Roderick, a former BYU receiver, Utah assistant coach, and now the Cougars’ offensive coordinator. “Man, they’ve got a great tradition. They’ve had great players and coaches there for years, and it is no different now.”

“Man, they’ve got a great tradition. They’ve had great players and coaches there for years, and it is no different now.”

BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick on TCU

The Frogs (2-2, 0-1) have plenty of motivation, after having been drubbed 44-13 by BYU last year in Provo. Coach Sonny Dykes’ squad is coming off a sloppy and mistake-filled 21-13 loss at UCF and is still searching for its first win over a Power Four opponent in 2026. Captains held a players-only meeting on Monday in an attempt to right the ship.

“That’s just one step in the right direction,” said quarterback Jaden Craig, a transfer from Harvard. “We’re looking to come together as a team.”

TCU’s other loss was to North Carolina, 15-10, in Ireland. The Frogs walloped Grambling State 63-7 and Arkansas State 31-7 at home after the loss overseas.

When BYU visits, however, TCU seems to take it up a notch.

Since losing 31-17 to John Beck-led BYU in 2006 when it was nationally ranked, TCU has routed BYU three times at Amon G. Carter Stadium, and also took a 38-28 victory over the Cougars in 2011 in a nonconference game played at Cowboys Stadium in nearby Arlington.

“Since the (2006 game), they put it on us four games in a row down there,” Poppinga said. “So we gotta go down there and play clean football. We have to win the turnover margin. We have to get turnovers. … We gotta win that battle, and we gotta stop the run. We have to play good in the red zone, and all those things on the road that are super important.”

The game could boil down to whether BYU can run the ball on TCU, which has one of the best rushing defenses in the country. The Frogs give up only 86 rushing yards per game, and 2.87 yards per carry. BYU is No. 9 in the country in rushing yards per game (262.7) and are third in yards per carry (6.74) behind reigning Big 12 offensive player of the year LJ Martin.

Poppinga said the Cougars’ defense welcomes a wet weather game.

“Love it, man. Let’s go. We love the elements,” he said, when told there’s a heavy possibility of rain in the Metroplex this weekend. “We were talking about it earlier. Like, yeah, give us everything you got. Give us a downpour, tornado, whatever. We’ll play in any of the elements. We’re excited about that opportunity. … If that happens, I think our guys will step up to that.”

Of greater concern to Poppinga is the way his defense has started in each of the past two games. Both Arizona and Colorado State scored touchdowns on their opening drives. Thousands of BYU fans will be in attendance Saturday, but BYU can’t afford to fall behind early and allow an upset-hungry home crowd to rev up.

In 2023, TCU’s Millard Bradford intercepted BYU quarterback Kedon Slovis less than two minutes into the game and returned it 35 yards for a touchdown. Three minutes later, Hoover threw a 42-yard touchdown pass to JP Richardson, and BYU was cooked. TCU led 24-0 before the Cougars got on the board with a 3-yard Keelan Marion touchdown run late in the second quarter.

“We would like to play better in the first drives of the game, so that’s been an emphasis, just making sure we start fast, start clean, get our cleats in the ground, get our eyes on the right spots, communicate, just do our job, and play football,” Poppinga said. “That’s really been my biggest emphasis because there have been flashes of us playing as good as I could remember us playing in the last three or four years.”

“We love the elements. ... Like, yeah, give us everything you got. Give us a downpour, tornado, whatever. We’ll play in any of the elements. We’re excited about that opportunity. … If that happens, I think our guys will step up to that.”

BYU defensive coordinator Kelly Poppinga

Offensively, the Cougars remember that they were coming off a bye week three years ago, and couldn’t get anything going until midway through the second quarter.

“I am really confident in this team,” Roderick said. “It is a different team, different time, and we got a lot of work in the past two weeks.”

Roderick acknowledged that running the ball on TCU’s defense won’t be easy. TCU’s defensive coordinator is Andy Avalos, the former Boise State head coach.

“I have tons of respect for these guys. They have good players. Coach Avalos is a great coach. He’s one of the best in the game, and he’s got a really good staff. They’re just a really well-coached team. So we have our work cut out for us, too.

“This is the biggest, most physical and most athletic team we’ve played yet this year,” Roderick continued. “We’re gonna have to go in there and be physical and be sound in what we do. It is gonna be a tough challenge, for sure.”

That game three years ago was played in the middle of the day; Saturday’s game begins at 6 p.m. local time, which comes as good news to a team that is 14-1 in its last 15 night games away from home.

BYU coach Kalani Sitake is expecting an entirely different TCU team than the one that committed four turnovers and 11 penalties last week.

“I anticipate them being a much better team than what we’ve seen because I know what their coaches are capable of doing, and we know being at home can be a huge advantage,” Sitake said. “The game time is going to work in our favor, I think, because we like to play in that time slot.

“But overall, being on the road is not an easy thing. … I think our guys felt a little left out last week. I think the guys really wanted to play, and so there’s a high level of anticipation and urgency to get to this game this weekend.”

And break the Fort Worth curse.