FORT WORTH, Texas — Sonny Dykes has a championship vision for TCU football.
“We intend to be the Big 12 champion and play for championships consistently,” Dykes said during his introductory news conference.
Could it happen as early as the 2022 season?
“Don’t put that much pressure on me yet,” Dykes said, laughing.
Dykes was formally introduced Tuesday as TCU’s next football coach by athletic director Jeremiah Donati at the Legends Club & Suites inside Amon G. Carter Stadium. Among those in attendance included TCU great LaDainian Tomlinson, current players Chandler Morris and Quentin Johnston, and incoming offensive coordinator Garrett Riley.
Dykes received a six-year deal worth close to $30 million, sources told the Star-Telegram.
Even though he didn’t put pressure on himself to win right away, Dykes knows there’s plenty of pressure simply by following in the footsteps of legendary coach Gary Patterson. Patterson and the school parted ways on Oct. 31 as Patterson exited with a 181-79 record over 21 seasons.
TCU has fallen in recent years, posting a 23-24 record since 2018. The Frogs have endured losing seasons in two of the last three years.
A fresh voice and a new vision was deemed necessary by TCU brass. And they found one in Dykes, the former SMU coach who had been considered TCU’s front-runner since the position opened.
Dykes spent the 2017 season with TCU as an offensive analyst under Patterson. Dykes then moved to SMU where he rebuilt the program and led it to its first 10-win season in 2019 since Bobby Collins in 1984. The Mustangs have enjoyed winning seasons in 2020 and 2021, too, although they lost four of their final five games this year under Dykes.
Part of that late-season collapse could be attributed to Dykes’ interest in TCU the final weeks. News leaked that Dykes would be headed to TCU the day before SMU’s regular-season finale against Tulsa on Saturday.
Regardless of the late-season struggles, TCU never wavered in its belief that Dykes was “the guy.”
Donati pushed back at the notion that Dykes was a “safe hire” for the school, rather than making a splashier hire such as Jackson State’s Deion Sanders.
“Well, I’d say it’s the best hire for us,” Donati said. “It’s the best fit. That’s all I’m concerned about. I wasn’t trying to win the press conference. We could’ve done that with another candidate.
“Who’s the best short-term and long-term fit for TCU? Sonny Dykes was that guy,” Donati added. “We had to look at the criteria we established, who met those and then who was the best fit for TCU.”
TCU’s desired credentials for its next coach included a sitting head coach with an offensive background familiar with today’s age of college athletics from the ever-growing transfer portal to players profiting off name, image and likeness (NIL).
Dykes, 52, checked those boxes. He’s had previous head coaching experience and turned SMU into one of the top offenses in the country. Dykes has also shown savvy in navigating the transfer portal in recent years.
Additionally, Dykes laid out a plan in which TCU could re-establish its recruiting footprint in Texas. The Frogs have already landed a couple four-star wide receiver prospects from the DFW area under Dykes’ staff including Garland’s Jordan Hudson of the 2022 class and North Mesquite’s Cordale Russell of the 2023 class.
“You have the best high school football players in the United States in your own backyard. How does it get any better than that?” Dykes said. “That’s something that I think is a great opportunity for us because there’s going to be an emphasis on recruiting local kids. When you go around the country and have a chance to see high school football like I have in so many different states, you just realize how good it is here in Texas.”
The recruiting aspect is part of Dykes’ three-part plan to help TCU reach his desired standard of competing for and winning championships.
Dykes’ three elements for sustained success are talent acquisition, player development and building a culture. Dykes called building the right culture at TCU among the most important elements.
“Players come and go. Guys graduate. People move on, but the culture sustains itself,” he said. “And the way you build a culture is by getting young people to be unselfish. Getting young people to realize that the team is bigger than the individual. That’s easier said than done. In today’s world a lot of times people think it’s all about them, and we intend to make sure everyone knows it’s all about us.”
Dykes laid out a vision on how he’ll return TCU to relevancy. The program hasn’t been ranked in the past two seasons and this is the breath of fresh air that school leadership felt was necessary.
Donati and TCU’s search committee vetted a number of candidates over the last month and kept coming back to Dykes. It felt like his job to lose from Day 1 even though TCU officials considered other coaches such as Sanders, Iowa State’s Matt Campbell, Louisiana’s Billy Napier and Clemson offensive coordinator Tony Elliott.
“It became apparent after a couple of weeks into it that Sonny was going to be hard to beat,” Donati said.
Nobody is happier that conclusion was reached than Dykes, the son of former Texas Tech coaching great Spike Dykes.
“When this job opened, obviously it was very, very attractive to me,” Dykes said. “I feel like this place has so much potential, so much consistency, so much leadership, so much investment. It’s an opportunity to go recruit the best football players in the country and compete in one of the great conferences in the country.
“When the job was coming open, I thought, ‘What a perfect landing spot for us.’ We really loved our time here in Fort Worth. We made a lot of friends who will be lifelong friends, so we just felt like this was the right place at the right time. We couldn’t be more excited to be here.”
