It was more than a month before TCU defensive coordinator Joe Gillespie could stomach the tape. Head coach Sonny Dykes isn’t even sure he made time to watch it with his players.

After such a nightmarish ending to a dream year, it was understandable that TCU coaches were hesitant to turn on the game film of their 65-7 loss at the hands of Georgia in the College Football Playoff national championship game, a horror movie for the Horned Frogs from start to finish.

“I didn’t watch it until after I got off the road recruiting and vacation, just because I couldn’t do it,” Gillespie said.

“It was kind of what you would expect from a score like that,” Dykes said.

TCU’s captivating season, with its 12-0 start, miraculous comebacks, Max Duggan Heisman Trophy campaign and HypnoToad, ended with a resounding thud on Jan. 8. For all the wishful thinking TCU’s semifinal upset of Michigan generated ahead of the title game, the reality is there wasn’t much the Horned Frogs could have done to change the outcome.

But the CFP-record margin of defeat can’t take away the accomplishments TCU collected on its way to college football’s biggest stage. The first Texas team to make the Playoff. The first Big 12 team to win a Playoff game. Thirteen wins to match the school’s single-season record.

Now, the Horned Frogs are looking ahead to Year 2 under Dykes from an intriguing position: How do you improve as a program when any progress is unlikely to show up in the win column?

“You have to do everything you can for it to reflect in the win column,” Dykes said. “When you’re kind of a Cinderella story like we were last year, you get labeled that.