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Andy Dalton arrived at TCU with little fanfare, when what made him stand out was his red hair and the most popular Horned Frogs jersey was still the No. 5 of LaDainian Tomlinson.
Dalton makes his final start for the Frogs on Saturday in the Rose Bowl, where there will be plenty of purple No. 14 jerseys for the winningest quarterback at the same school where Davey O'Brien and ''Slingin' Sammy'' Baugh played.
''It's bittersweet for sure,'' Dalton said. ''I just feel so blessed to have everything I've been able to accomplish. It will be weird not coming back.''
Dalton's 41 wins are the most among active FBS quarterbacks. Third-ranked TCU (12-0), which plays its first Rose Bowl against fourth-ranked Wisconsin (11-1), became a two-time BCS buster with consecutive undefeated regular seasons under Dalton, the school's career passing leader.
''My time here has been unbelievable,'' Dalton said.
And not just because of what he has accomplished on the field in the forefront of TCU's greatest days since Baugh won 29 games from 1934-36 and O'Brien led the Horned Frogs to their only AP national championship while winning the Heisman Trophy in 1938.
''The most rewarding thing for me is to have people come up to me and say, not only thank you for everything you've done in football, but thank you for being a role model for my kid, thank you for being such a class act,'' Dalton said. ''I hope that that's how a lot of people have perceived me and will remember me.''
TCU senior center Jake Kirkpatrick, who before getting married was Dalton's roommate, said the quarterback is always talking to kids and has never turned down an autograph or picture.
''He's just a good example in everything he does,'' Kirkpatrick said. ''That's what people will miss when he's gone. He's a leader for this university.''
Dalton, who is getting married next summer, became a four-year starter at TCU after being a full-time starter at Katy High School in the Houston area only his senior season.
Because he split time at quarterback as a prep junior, Dalton wasn't heavily recruited by major schools. But he went to several camps and committed to TCU early in his senior season, before leading Katy to a 14-1 record and the Texas 5A final.
Now he's an NFL prospect. He got his marketing degree from TCU earlier this month and soon will turn his attention to preparing for the scouting combine and draft.
Kirkpatrick is active in Ignite, a nondenominational campus ministry founded by an 11-student leadership group that included Dalton. The Monday night worship meetings that began last spring draw an average of 600-700 students.
''One of the favorite things that I've done at TCU is help get that started. ... To see how everybody on this campus responds to it and enjoys it, and it's something that this campus needed,'' Dalton said. ''Having people talk about Ignite is more fulfilling for me than anything that I've done here in football.''
Dalton, who is strengthened by his Christian faith, said one girl had it on her heart to start something like Ignite. She started talking to different people on campus and a ''most random'' leadership team was formed to determine what the group should be like.
''There are teams of graduated professionals who would have a hard time pulling off something like this,'' said Matt Larsen, the group's weekly speaker. ''It's not like they were all best buds. ... It's cool to see different people from different walks of life.''
Larsen, a former walk-on at Texas A&M, said the group's music leader was a TCU football fan who had never met Dalton before moving instruments and speakers into the room hours before the group's first meeting last April.
In an elevator surrounded by several big guys, the music leader asked if they were football players. When they responded affirmatively, they were asked what position they played.
''(Dalton) is like, 'Um, I play quarterback,''' Larsen said with a smile. ''Apart from that, you would never know. He's just a humble, really likable guy.''
Dalton, the Mountain West career leader in total offense, has a league-record 26 touchdowns this season - with only six interceptions. He has thrown a touchdown in 20 consecutive games.
Four seasons after the ''starry-eyed'' feeling he had as a freshman, when he played at Texas in only his second game for the Frogs, Dalton is quite comfortable going into his final game at the storied Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.
Dalton is among 26 seniors who make up the winningest senior class in TCU history (43 wins). This is the third consecutive senior group with more than 40 wins after no Frogs class had done that since the 1930s.
''I just feel like I've been so blessed to have such great teammates around me,'' Dalton said. ''Obviously I didn't do it myself. I happen to have been the quarterback.''
