TCU made the national championship two seasons ago, but it might be time to fire the head coach who got them there.
Sonny Dykes entered his third season at the helm with his players and his coaching staff. Only a few leftovers remained from the Gary Patterson era. This season was supposed to be the culmination of multiple years of recruiting and development and a bounce back from the horrendous depths of last year’s embarrassment. None of that has come to pass.
TCU just lost to Houston 30-19. Coming into Friday night, Houston hadn’t scored a touchdown in nine quarters and had been shut out in its first two conference games against Iowa State and Cincinnati. In its first five games, Houston had entered the red zone just seven times and had only scored in three of those instances. In the first half alone against TCU, Houston scored on all three of their trips to the red zone–a truly damning statistic for TCU.
To say that the roster Houston first-year head coach Willie Fritz inherited was scarce with good players would be an understatement. Put simply, TCU has better athletes and players than Houston. That reality was not evident on Friday night. In fact, the only game where TCU consistently outmatched and outplayed its opponent was against FCS bottom-dweller Long Island, which isn’t an accomplishment worth bragging rights.
From start to finish, Houston looked like a team that knew the plan and knew how to execute it. What’s unfortunate is that the game plan was absolutely nothing special; it consisted of a bunch of short throws behind the line of scrimmage and a lot of runs through the A-gap. TCU could’ve, and should’ve, been able to adapt, but much like the rest of the season, it didn't.
The failure to address the issues is exactly why it’s time to move on. Dykes and his staff have consistently failed to adjust during games, which is mystifying because that is exactly what the staff excelled at during the 2022 season that saw the team make it to the national championship.
But how TCU fell to Houston doesn’t even really matter, because a loss to this Houston team is a fireable offense, no matter how it looked. Add last night’s debacle on top of the appalling second-half collapse against UCF and the horrid showing in University Park versus SMU, then you got yourself a coach whose seat is getting extremely warm. Scorching, perhaps. I freely admit that today is probably not the exact right time, but if the season continues on this trajectory, I see no other option but to terminate the current coaching staff. Rarely do things get better from this point (just look at Baylor).
If it had come away with a victory yesterday, TCU could’ve found itself firmly in the Big 12 title race heading into its game against Utah in two weeks. Spirits would be high. The season wouldn’t be over—far from it actually—and people would still have a reason to attend games.
No longer is that the case. If TCU can lose to Houston, I see no reason why it will be competitive in any other game left on the schedule, particularly in matchups against Utah, Arizona, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma State.
It’s astonishing to me that we even find ourselves in this position. This same football team played in the national championship game less than two years ago! I think we all just need to chalk that up as an example of a modern Biblical miracle. There are no words to describe how that even happened. The fact that I am sitting here writing that the same football program needs to fire the head coach who brought them to that point less than two years after it occurred is crazy. We’re not supposed to be here; yet we are.
I don’t expect Dykes to lose his job this year, as much as I think it would be the right move. He earned himself enough goodwill in the athletic department with the 2022 season to at least last into next year. I think that is a mistake, one that will prove costly. How? I don’t know. I just know that sitting around waiting for everything to miraculously get better isn’t going to move the needle.
The season, at least in a literal sense, is not over. TCU still has six games left to play, with conference power and College Football Playoff contender Utah up next. Dykes now has two weeks to get this team motivated to go on the road and try to pull off a monumental upset against the Utes in Salt Lake City on October 19. I have zero confidence that he can do it.