The Horned Frogs’ special season has left a mark on the internet.
TCU’s 2022 season will live forever in college football history, but also in internet history. While the Horned Frogs have gone 13–1 on the field, one win away from a national championship, the school’s social media team has been commemorating every victory since mid-October with an absurd, meme-filled video that often plays off their opponent. Texas, Michigan, Baylor, Oklahoma State and West Virginia are among the video victims, while Oklahoma, Kansas, SMU, Colorado and Tarleton State had the fortune of losing to TCU before it started the trend.
The videos range in theme and are at times difficult for anyone outside the most dedicated memelords to understand. But the beauty is in the chaos and the pizazz, not the comprehension. As my colleague Richard Johnson wrote in a recent story about the legend of the Hypnotoad and the Horned Frogs’ online presence, “TCU’s postgame victory videos are what happens when a college football team embraces the true depths of internet-driven creativity, not just posting score graphics and locker room videos.”
Matt Kartozian/USA TODAY Sports
All eight videos are memorable, and the first seven built the anticipation for the one TCU released after its College Football Playoff semifinal upset of Michigan. We can only imagine the kind of video it would drop if it does the unthinkable and beats Georgia for the national championship. In the meantime, let’s revisit and rank these glorious compilations, from awesome to most awesome.
8. Theme: “get frogged”
Opponent: Kansas State Wildcats
This is arguably the most simple video of the eight, and while it’s plenty of fun, it gets eclipsed by the others’ absurdity. This video concept seems like it took a particularly big time investment, collecting humorous close-up photos of numerous players before setting it all to heavy metal music (interspersed, naturally, with images such as Yoda dunking on the Miami Heat). It should be noted that the Wildcats are the only team to beat TCU all season, and they got their revenge for the below with their own TCU-style “frogs aren’t real” video after winning the Big 12 title game.
7. Theme: “crazy frog”
Opponent: Oklahoma State Cowboys
This is the first one TCU did, and it makes sure to blow a kiss to the haters. It points out that the Horned Frogs—6–0 at the time—were picked seventh in the Big 12’s preseason poll, and includes a player TikTok dance, a toad watching fireworks, locker room dancing and some particularly weird memes.
6. Theme: “horns down”
Opponent: Texas Longhorns
This expert troll job (and a smart way to get around Big 12 rules) has an easy-to-follow theme: As the Alabama song “If You’re Gonna Play in Texas (You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band)” plays, the video shows a montage that includes anything with, resembling or representing horns flipped upside down. And we mean anything—a narwhal, a triceratops, Darth Maul from Star Wars, Mr. Tumnus from The Chronicles of Narnia, a french horn, Chief Bogo from Zootopia and more. It ends, of course, with a right-side-up Texas Horned Lizard noting the team’s 10 wins.
5. Theme: “techno win”
Opponent: Texas Tech Red Raiders
This one starts a little slow as a sad Red Raiders mascot plays “A Thousand Miles from Nowhere”—before quickly morphing into a techno frenzy. The name synergy here is worth points alone, as the video makes sure to note it can be broken into “Tech No Win.” A partial list of things it also features: lasers, an animated frog running, Ric Flair, crying cactuses, Spongebob’s victory screech, psychedelic toads and explosions. Catch the “Welcome to the frog dimension” near the very end, as well. With only 55,000 Twitter views, this one didn’t get its proper internet due, in my opinion.
4. Theme: “frognado”
Opponent: Iowa State Cyclones
There’s a lot to unpack here in one of the most heavily trolling videos on this list. It starts, naturally, with the Cyclones’ logo being swept away in, well, a cyclone. The early feature of the Hypnotoad gets my attention, and the use of Darude’s “Sandstorm” is great, as is the inclusion of the classic flying-car video. Where this video really goes next-level, though, is at the end, when it points out that TCU star QB Max Duggan is an Iowa native.
3. Theme: “country toads”
Opponent: West Virginia Mountaineers
I’ll admit, this is the first of these TCU videos that I ever saw—and I was enraptured by it. This one is light on memes and direct trolling (aside from its wonderful name, a play on WVU’s theme song “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver), but is a delightful collection of frogs/toads in hats (including Kermit the Frog and Toad from Super Mario Bros.) drenched in a purple hue, set to an oddly catchy tune.
2. Theme: “just bearly”
Opponent: Baylor Bears
In addition to its clever name (this was the game where TCU barely won on a fire-drill field goal), this is a straight-up piece of art. The video starts with what’s purported to be the “Baylor University Pooh Cam” as Winnie-the-Pooh’s soul rises from his body. From there it delves into pure chaos. There’s so much going on in here (such as the Smokey Bear appearance, or the floating background Hypnotoad) that you really need multiple watches to take in everything. It features a strange collection of bears and frogs, the Taco Bell bong sound, a meme-world interaction between TCU coach Sonny Dykes and Baylor coach Dave Aranda, and a Law & Order final flourish. Of all eight videos, this one has racked up the most Twitter views (1 million) and likes (31,800) as of publish, though No. 1 is on its heels …
1. Theme: “got milk”
Opponent: Michigan Wolverines
This is TCU’s pièce de résistance. The pressure was high, given the circumstances—national spotlight, Playoff game, big-brand Big Ten opponent—but TCU delivered both on the field and off. The video trolls from the opening seconds, poking fun at Michigan’s maize coloring and coming for Jim Harbaugh’s known love of milk (including with an image of the coach shirtless with an udder that I’d rather erase from my mind). Still, this was the perfect celebration of the program’s once seemingly improbable national title-game berth. Long live Hypnotoad.
