FORT WORTH, Texas -- TCU Horned Frogs first-year quarterback Casey Pachall has come full circle in 10 wild, and perhaps foretelling, performances.

The young gunslinger who couldn't finish the job against Baylor and SMU is now the tactical surgeon who completed five of seven passes on the final, game-winning drive at hostile Boise State. He outperformed senior Heisman candidate Kellen Moore and buried the national championship dark horse on its own blue turf.

Casey Pachall threw for 473 yards and five touchdowns at Boise State this past week. Otto Kitsinger III/Getty Images

Still, to curry favor with his coach, it apparently will take more than a 473-yard, five-touchdown passing day -- the single-best performance in Gary Patterson's 11 seasons -- in this season's signature victory. It put TCU in the driver's seat for a third consecutive Mountain West Conference title, launched it back into the national polls at No. 19, and bounced Boise from BCS contention while remarkably reinserting the Frogs into the mix.

"I'm not ready to anoint Casey Pachall," Patterson said this week, while failing to expound on what exactly he would "anoint" his Day 1 starter, as though the 6-foot-5 blue-chip recruit out of Brownwood is one sloppy play from the hot seat. "People want to know why he's played well. Well, we handled Andy Dalton the same way; we don't make him be somebody special."

Yet, Pachall -- note for the uninitiated, it's pronounced Paw-hall -- certainly would seem to be trending that way.

The sophomore who spent two seasons under Dalton -- a remarkable success story in his own right at TCU and now as the rookie starter on the 6-3 Cincinnati Bengals -- is already nipping at four single-season passing records belonging to his predecessor. Pachall's first-year passing numbers compared with Dalton's in 2007 are eye-popping -- already 2,413 yards, 24 touchdowns and just six interceptions to Dalton's 1,912 yards, 10 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.