If last week was now or never for the TCU Horned Frogs, then this Saturday’s contest against the No. 10 BYU Cougars is equivalent to DEFCON 1. All hands must be on deck. Everybody must be ready to man their battle stations.
Hope in Fort Worth seems futile, but one magical night might be able to save it — at least for now. But is that even possible? And perhaps even more importantly, do TCU fans even want that?
On its face, that’s a ludicrous statement. Of course TCU fans want their team to succeed and win! That’s the whole point of this enterprise after all, right?
Well, sometimes fandom isn’t that simple. Being a supporter of a team — particularly a college football team — comes with tons of emotional strings attached. For many of the Horned Frog faithful, TCU has been an integral part of their lives ever since they were born. Childhoods were spent roaming the concourse of Amon G. Carter Stadium. Teenage years saw them marvel at the campus, wondering what a potential collegiate tenure in Fort Worth would look like. The lucky ones who were then able to attend TCU got to experience that love up close and personal, an attachment that isn’t easily broken. Those bonds mean more to people than most of us will ever know. It’s a personal experience that borders on a religion, one that defines emotion and oftentimes supersedes it.
All that to say that TCU fans, for better or worse, are an emotional bunch. And those people don’t like failure — rightfully so.
TCU’s Problems Are Getting Harder to Ignore
What they see right now is failure of the utmost extent. Losing to North Carolina in Ireland? A failure. Struggling against Arkansas State at home? Yeah, that’s somewhat of a failure as well. And then falling on the road to a UCF squad that was forced to play its backup quarterback as well as a slew of other players further down the depth chart? You guessed it: failure.
Another important part of collegiate athletics is the concept of the scapegoat. There always has to be somebody to blame. In TCU’s case, it’s head coach Sonny Dykes.
Dykes, who arrived in Fort Worth in 2022 and immediately rose to prominence by taking the Frogs to the national title game in his first season, has never been able to recapture the magic of the early going of his tenure. In fact, everything’s gotten much worse. The losses have been mystifying, bordering on hysterically bad. The excuses have been even more confusing. But TCU was still winning enough — posting back-to-back 9-4 campaigns — that everybody could somewhat pretend that perhaps everything was going to be alright.
The start of the 2026 season has made pretending considerably more difficult.
The offense, with new quarterback Jaden Craig at the helm as well as a fresh face at coordinator in Gordon Sammis, has been anemic. The defense has been alright, though it too has had its issues with discipline, which isn’t exactly a new problem for this version of TCU. All in all, the Frogs are 2-2 and are already having to accept the fact that they won’t be able to achieve their stated goals.
It’s not even Halloween.
Would Losing to BYU Actually Help TCU?
And that brings us back to BYU, because Saturday night presents a rather uncomfortable question for a portion of the fan base. There are TCU fans who would never actively root against the Frogs, but also wouldn’t exactly be devastated if this thing completely fell apart against the Cougars.
Not because they suddenly hate TCU. Quite the opposite, actually.
They care enough about the program that they have reached the point where another win that temporarily calms everybody down might feel less valuable than finally forcing the people in charge to confront what TCU football has become. Maybe that means a coaching change. Maybe it means changes elsewhere within the program. Maybe it means something nobody has even considered yet.
The specifics almost feel secondary. They just want change.
Something new. Something different. Something that feels innovative and exciting and, more than anything, like a breath of fresh air. Something that makes people want to spend their Saturdays inside Amon G. Carter Stadium again rather than watching out of obligation or, even worse, not really caring whether they watch at all.
Apathy Is the Real Danger in Fort Worth
Because anger isn’t the most dangerous emotion in sports. Anger means you’re still invested enough to yell about the offensive coordinator, complain about the head coach and spend your week wondering how everything went so wrong.
Apathy is much scarier.
TCU can still prevent itself from reaching that point. Beat No. 10 BYU on Saturday night and suddenly there’s life again. Maybe not enough to fix everything that has happened over the first month of the season, but enough to make Fort Worth believe for another week.
Lose, though, and the conversation changes again.
At DEFCON 1, there isn’t another level to go to.
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