Monday, December 10, 2007

TCU football freshmen earn All-American honors

By Pegasus News wire

Kelly Griffin

TCU nose tackle Kelly Griffin has been named an honorable-mention Freshman All-American by The Sporting News.

Griffin, who has started all 12 games this season, is the first true freshman to start for the Horned Frogs in the seven-year tenure of head coach Gary Patterson. He is also one of seven Frogs on defense to start every game in 2007.

Griffin is the 10th Freshman All-American under Patterson.

An Irving, Texas, native and graduate of MacArthur High School, Griffin has totaled 13 tackles with two for a loss. He posted a season-best three stops, all solo, at Texas.

Andy Dalton

TCU quarterback Andy Dalton has been named an honorable-mention Freshman All-American by The Sporting News.

Dalton has set a Horned Frog freshman passing record with 2,210 yards, becoming just the seventh quarterback in TCU history to reach 2,000 yards in a campaign. His total ranks fourth on the Frogs' single-season chart, just 28 yards shy of surpassing Max Knake (2,237, 1995) for third place and 185 from moving ahead of Jeff Ballard (2,394, 2006) into second.

With 201 completions, Dalton needs seven more to move past Knake (207, 1993) for the single-season Frogs' record. Dalton's 341 pass attempts rank third on the TCU season chart, 28 behind Knake's 1995 mark of 369. Dalton has a 58.9 completion percentage to place fifth on TCU's single-season chart.

In the 27-0 season-opening win over Baylor, Dalton became the fifth-straight quarterback to win his first start under head coach Gary Patterson. He was also the first TCU signal caller in the Patterson era to make his collegiate debut as a starter.

A native of Katy, Texas, Dalton became the first TCU quarterback since Tye Gunn in 2004 to pass for 300 yards in a game. His 344 yards in a win at Stanford rank as the eighth-best single-game total in TCU history. He also threw for 320 yards at Air Force and just missed a third 300-yard effort with 298 at San Diego State. Dalton had a season-best 358 yards of total offense against the Aztecs.

Dalton places fifth nationally among freshman quarterbacks in completions (201) and attempts (341) while ranking sixth in yards (2,210) and completion percentage (58.9).

Dalton, TCU's leading rusher in two of the last three games, passed for at least two touchdowns in four contests. He's thrown for 10 scores on the season. He also had a 27-yard pass reception against Utah.

The Frogs face Houston on Dec. 28 in the Texas Bowl. Kickoff is 7 p.m. at Reliant Stadium.

Source: TCU

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