Bring on any opponent for TCU. The undefeated Horned Frogs are going to bust into the BCS for the first time. The only question left is where are they headed and who will they play.

"We can play with anybody," coach Gary Patterson said after TCU wrapped its first undefeated regular season in 71 years. "We're going to look forward to the challenge, we'll find out what that's going to be and we're going to get ready for it. ... This team can play with a lot of people, and not just this year."

Hard to argue after the fourth-ranked Horned Frogs improved to 12-0 with a 51-10 victory over New Mexico on Saturday _ their seventh straight win by at least 27 points, a stretch including BYU and Utah, last year's BCS buster.

While there should be no question about if TCU (12-0, 8-0 Mountain West Conference) will be part of the Bowl Championship Series, the Frogs have to wait another week to make travel plans.

Representatives from the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls were in attendance.

"They're sure way up there," said Alan Young, the Fiesta Bowl board chairman. "It's an easy sell to our board of directors. ... TCU is right in the middle of our mix."

After some near-misses in the past, including a 10-0 start in 2003 and a one-loss season two years after that, TCU is higher in the BCS standings than any team from a conference without an automatic bid has ever been this late in the season. The Frogs are fourth behind Florida, Alabama and Texas.

"Well, we finally did it," Patterson said to open his postgame news conference.

Andy Dalton matched a career high with four touchdown passes, two to Antoine Hicks in a 12-second span that put the Horned Frogs up 30-0 early in the second quarter. Dalton had already run for a score.

As the final seconds ticked off the clock, fans chanted "B-C-S! B-C-S!" They then stormed the field to celebrate, creating a sea of purple around a riser in the middle of the field where a celebratory cooler shower-drenched Patterson accepted the Mountain West Conference championship trophy.

By clinching the outright Mountain West title, TCU has only the two upper boxes of its pyramid of goals still not colored in purple. The Frogs are certain to play in a BCS game, though the teams ahead of them will have to slip up for a chance at their loftiest goal: No. 1, national champions. Florida and Alabama do have to play each other in the SEC championship game next week, and Texas meets Nebraska in the Big 12 title game.

"Of course, we're going to root for the upset and all of that," Dalton said. "Now that we've done everything that we can do, there's that relief. "