Replacing an iconic football coach who already has a statue on campus and his fingerprints all over TCU and Fort Worth wasn’t going to be easy for anyone.
But if anyone is equipped to follow in Gary Patterson’s footsteps, it’s Sonny Dykes, the 52-year-old who was brought in five weeks ago to lead the Horned Frogs program. This is a coach who grew up in football royalty. His late father, Spike, worked under coaches such as Darrell Royal at Texas before becoming a beloved coaching figure at Texas Tech.
Sonny Dykes understands the legacy he is following and embraces it.
“Look, there’s no denying what Coach Patterson meant to this place,” Dykes said. “You just look at the history of TCU football. He gets the job and stays here for 21 years and what impact he had on the program. The gradual improvement, making it from conference to conference to conference and winning championships in those conferences. He’s done it every single step along the way.
“I’ve always had a tremendous appreciation for Gary. His passion for football is unrivaled. He built this place into what it is today, which I think is one of the better jobs in college football.”
During a mid-December interview with the Star-Telegram, Dykes said he and Patterson had yet to talk since the coaching transition occurred. But Dykes is laying his own foundation on the program a month into his tenure.
He likes the players they signed during the early signing period and continues to evaluate players in the NCAA transfer portal who might be potential fits for the new era.
Dykes is going to run the program in a vastly different manner than Patterson did. Patterson’s way worked, of course, as he won 70% of his games (181-79) and TCU landed in the top 10 of the final AP poll six times over 21 seasons. But there’s more than one road to success.
Under Dykes, there will be open practices for fans and media, which will result in more access to players and assistants. There will be different philosophies on the offensive and defensive side of the ball. Patterson brought the “Air Raid” to Fort Worth several years ago when he hired Sonny Cumbie and Doug Meacham as co-offensive coordinators in 2014, but Dykes has his own version of the high-scoring, pass-happy attack.
Defensively, coordinator Joe Gillespie will run a 3-3-5 scheme instead of Patterson’s signature 4-2-5 defense.
Still, Dykes’ core values are similar to Patterson’s. It’ll just be presented in a different fashion.
“Without a doubt, we’re very aligned in how we view the game and what we believe leads to success,” Dykes said. “Now, the way we go about it is a little bit different. There’s so much in this day and age you have to consider. I’ve tried to be pretty aggressive in my thinking when it comes to understanding things change, the game changes. You’ve got to stay ahead of it the best you can. Recruiting changes. You have to be willing to adapt. Players change and mentality has changed through the years.
“You have to make sure you’re adapting to society and players and how they view the world. Not only adapt but try to get ahead.”
Dykes used open practices as an example to showcase this philosophy. Instead of viewing open practices as a potential way for opposing teams to gain an advantage, Dykes sees it as an opportunity to make players and the program more visible to the community.
Plus, as Dykes said, every play the team has run is already on film for opposing teams. There’s not much that’ll affect Saturday’s final score from opening up a practice.
“I’ve always believed in making your players accessible because sometimes people have a preconceived notion of a college football player, kind of a ‘dumb jock’ mentality,” Dykes said. “But when people have an opportunity to be around these guys, see how hard they work, see what they go through, see how much they invest, they always walk away with a new level of respect for the players.
“I always felt I owed it to the players to get them exposed to other people. It changes how they’re perceived and looked at. I’ve always had open practices. And we coach the players in a manner that their parents, recruits’ parents, our alumni and fans and supporters will be proud of. I want them to see how hard the coaches work, how hard the players work. In my view, it’s not my team. It’s TCU’s team. I want the TCU community to be part of the team.”
Football royalty
Montae Reagor played for Spike Dykes at Texas Tech in the late 1990s and only has fond memories. He enjoyed learning under a legendary coach and still remembers a few of his sayings to this day.
Reagor recalled that Spike Dykes loved to say, “The hay is in the barn” after a week’s worth of practice.
“Everybody loved Spike. He is a legend,” Reagor said. “Personally, it was an unbelievable experience to play for him. The day he stepped into my house and put his feet on the coffee table and ate fried chicken, I knew that was someone I wanted to play for. It felt like I never left home. I would not change my mind today. I’d go play for him again.
“He taught me about the game of football and taught me about the game of life. He coached you hard, but he also loved you. You got his all every day. As a player, that’s all you want.”
Reagor, whose son Jalen played for TCU under Patterson, is excited to see Sonny get the opportunity to run the program.
“Sonny is mild-mannered, just like his dad,” Reagor said. “He doesn’t get too high or too low. You can see a lot of Spike in him. He’s an exceptional leader. He’s a program builder. I’m excited to see what he’s going to do at TCU.”
Sonny described himself as “really lucky” to be raised by a father who was a legendary coaching figure. Spike Dykes earned everything he got in the industry.
Spike spent the first decade of his coaching career in the high school ranks. He went from coaching Alice High School to the University of Texas when Royal hired him as an assistant on the Longhorns staff in 1972. Then, 14 years later, Spike found himself as Tech’s head coach in 1986 until his retirement in 1999.
Given his dad’s stature, Sonny likely could have taken an easier path through the coaching ranks. But, just like his dad did, Sonny has worked his way up the ladder. He started at the high school level, then went to the junior college ranks at Navarro College before landing his first Power 5 job at Kentucky.
“It was important to me when I decided to coach that I did it on my own,” Sonny said. “It made it a little bit harder, but at the same time, it’s been more satisfying because of that.
“When I started coaching, I really just wanted to be a high school coach. I didn’t really have a desire to coach in college at all. I went to Richardson Pearce and was teaching five sophomore English classes. I had 150 kids every day and spent all of my time teaching and very little coaching. I thought maybe I want to take a look at college football, so I went to Navarro Junior College, and that’s where I got the bug to coach college ball.”
Creative mind
Dykes landed his first big break at Kentucky, joining Hal Mumme’s staff as a graduate assistant in 1997. Dykes’ first assignment? Designing fake punt plays.
Mumme had just taken over the program and the Wildcats had five punts blocked on them the previous season. Limiting the number of blocked punts, more than Mumme’s offensive philosophy and installing a little known offense at the time referred to as the “Air Raid,” is what the Wildcat faithful cared about more than anything.
“They asked me about it everywhere I’d speak,” Mumme said. “So I told Sonny to come up with a way to fake punts because then teams will stop rushing us. I thought it was an impossible job, but he got it done. We had a bunch of tight ends on the roster when we took over, and he came up with a great little scheme using them.
“That’s the first real creative deal I saw him do. I got credit for it and for gambling on fourth down, but he was the creative mind behind it.”
Mumme went on to talk about how Dykes helped turn tight end James Whalen into an All-American in 1999, when Dykes rejoined Mumme’s staff after a year at Louisiana-Monroe. Whalen set NCAA records for most receptions in a season (90) and most receptions per game (8.2) by a tight end in 1999. He was Kentucky’s first tight end to top the 1,000-yard receiving mark.
Whalen, who spent four seasons with the Dallas Cowboys from 2000 to 2003, is considered a pioneer for how the tight end position has evolved in today’s game.
“We were one of the firsts to do it. The proof is in the pudding,” said Whalen, who now resides in Fort Worth and works at Autobahn BMW Fort Worth.
“Now teams at any level are salivating trying to find that guy who can do those things. Sonny really helped me learn how to do those things. People always asked, ‘How do you get so open?’ Well, I ran to where they’re not. As simplistic as that sounds, it is a skill that has to be learned and taught.”
Being creative remains a staple for Dykes as he takes over another program. Whether it’s designing special teams plays such as fake punts or managing a roster in today’s age of the ever-growing transfer portal, Dykes tries to stay ahead of the curve.
Dykes made it clear that he and his staff can get creative in how they build the roster through the portal and that recruiting for the upcoming 2022 season won’t end until the start of fall camp.
Whatever the final roster looks like, Dykes said, will dictate how his version of the Air Raid and how the defense’s new scheme play on Saturday.
Just like he found ways to include an abundance of tight ends into a fake punt package as a GA at Kentucky, he’ll figure out what works best for next year’s team.
“You have to take what you have and try to maximize it and allow guys to do what they’re good at,” he said. “That was a big part of learning about what coaching really is — is trying to take that philosophy and adapt it to those players.
“Our version here is going to be to figure out what we have in terms of players and build the offense around our players. We don’t ever want to try to play guys and put them in positions where they can’t be successful. Or ask them to do things that they can’t do. Again, that’s part of the reason we’ve had success in our career. We can adapt and we can adjust.”
Life off the field
Sonny Dykes is a self-described coffee snob. He’s a fan of all the fancy lattes. He likes to travel and get away to the beach. Oh, and as any Texan does, he likes his barbecue.
Dykes is already planning a trip to Goldee’s, the Fort Worth-based joint that was recently named the best barbecue restaurant in the state by Texas Monthly. Dykes believes he’s been to at least seven of the top 10 barbecue places on Texas Monthly’s list.
“But I can’t wait to get to Goldee’s,” Dykes said.
Outside of that, you might catch him around town at Tokyo Cafe or Joe T. Garcia’s. Or at one of his children’s events.
Dykes has two daughters, ages 13 and 10, and one son, 5. And, as time-demanding as being a college football coach is, Dykes makes a conscious effort to be a family man first.
“If you could ask my dad, his biggest regret in life would be that he wasn’t around his kids as much as he’d like,” Dykes said. “But that was that era of coaching. Those guys worked 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. year round. That’s just what they did. You had to because you couldn’t leave the office. You had to make recruiting calls and had to watch film or whatever. With today’s technology, obviously you can make calls from your cell phone at your kid’s baseball game. Or watch film at your daughter’s dance recital if you want to. The most important job I have is dad and husband and then football coach.
“I try to live my life that way, but we all know how obsessed we are with football and how much you have to be. But I try to have fun, and having a life outside of football is really important to me and I want it to be important to our staff, too.”
