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Dave Wilson, ESPN Staff Writer
TCU coach Sonny Dykes isn’t big on playing the disrespect card or any other chip-on-your-shoulder motivation. If his players want to use it, that’s their prerogative.
He prefers a more straightforward approach.
“We lost two of our last three games last year,” Dykes said this week. “So I think [the players] are hungry and ready to get back out and win some football games.”
Nevermind that those two games — a 31-28 Big 12 title heartbreaker to Kansas State in overtime, and a 65-7 humbling by Georgia in the College Football Playoff National Championship — just happened to be in huge games that the Frogs were never expected to reach (and were sandwiched on either end of a thrilling 51-45 semifinal win over Michigan in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl).
The bigger issue facing this year’s team is that much of the heart and soul of that 13-2 Cinderella season is gone:
Starting quarterback and Heisman Trophy finalist Max Duggan. First-round draft pick Quentin Johnston at receiver. Linebacker Dee Winters, the defensive MVP of the Fiesta Bowl. First-team All-Big 12 running back Kendre Miller. Thorpe Award winner Tre’vius Hodges-Tomlinson at corner. Consensus All-American Steve Avila at center. Not to mention that last year’s offensive coordinator, Garrett Riley, is busy installing his offense at Clemson, where he was introduced four days after the Georgia game. His replacement, Kendal Briles, inherits a group that only returns 33% of its offensive production from Riley’s crew.
So it’s fair that TCU begins this season as it did last year, with a healthy amount of skepticism. Can a program that patched together a historic run maintain that standard despite the losses? The questions led the Frogs to a fifth-place prediction in this year’s Big 12 media poll.
For Dykes, though, there’s a quiet confidence he has, all based on the way his team is moving on after the ride stopped.
“The ‘want to’ is really there,” Dykes said. “It’s a mature group. We lost a lot of older guys off the team last year, a lot of leadership. But this team seems, so far, even more focused and more dedicated and even more mature.”
There are reasons for his optimism. It’s clear that Dykes’ relationships in Texas, combined with his early success at TCU, garnered plenty of attention from other Power 5 players looking for a new home.
Last year’s transfer group was filled with under-the-radar types that proved to be hidden gems. That includes linebacker Johnny Hodges, the Frogs’ leading tackler, who arrived from Navy after TCU was the only Power 5 school to extend an offer, Josh Newton, a first-team all-Big 12-corner from Louisiana-Monroe, key defensive line rotation members from Stephen F. Austin (Caleb Fox) and UConn (Lwal Uguak) and Louisiana running back Emani Bailey, who led the Big 12 in yards per carry (8.1) in a backup role.
“For us, a good player is a good player, a productive player is a productive player and a lot of times it doesn’t matter if they’re from Southwest Assemblies of God or from Alabama,” Dykes said, mentioning defensive linemen Tico Brown, who transferred from Missouri State last year and Rick D’Abreu, who came from East Carolina this year. “I don’t know that it means that much to us.”
Still, there were several former star recruits at big programs who fit with this year’s mission. Dykes brought in three players from Alabama (running back Trey Sanders, wide receiver JoJo Earle and offensive tackle Tommy Brockermeyer), along with several other receivers to restock after the departures of three Frogs, including first-round pick Johnston, to the NFL. They, too, came from big programs: Jaylon Robinson from Ole Miss, JP Richardson from Oklahoma State, Jack Bech from LSU and Dylan Wright from Minnesota. They also added corner Avery Helm from Florida.
Richardson, who caught five passes for 50 yards and a touchdown against TCU last year, described what he saw from them that appealed to him.
“There’s so much to learn [from last year],” Richardson said. “All the adversity they had to face. They had to fight back and win a lot of games and every week, with people just thinking, ‘They’re gonna go down. It’s got to end soon, right?’ And they just kept on winning.”
Dykes said his staff had connections to several of the players from recruiting them in the past, including Earle and Brockermeyer who both played high school football in the Fort Worth vicinity, as did Robinson and Wright. Richardson, the son of former Texas A&M quarterback Bucky Richardson, also had a previous relationship with Dykes.
“I’ve known Sonny for a little bit,” JP Richardson said. “How crazy is this? He was my uncle’s roommate at Texas Tech.”
Richardson, who coaches say has been a standout in practice since arriving, said he’s been impressed by the talent on hand at receiver, including returners like Savion Williams, four-star freshman recruit Cordale Russell and tight end Jared Wiley.
“We got some dudes, man,” he said. “We should be pretty explosive. We definitely have the guys in the room to make it happen. We’re going to be really fast. Really, really, really high tempo.”
Along with those transfers, Dykes said he’s excited about the newfound depth provided by the freshman class, which was the highest-rated group the Frogs have ever signed (19th nationally in ESPN’s rankings and third in the Big 12 behind Texas and Oklahoma).
“The freshman class is very talented and deep and better than advertised, I think,” he said. “I mean, we have eight young defensive linemen that we’re very excited about. Typically you might have two or three or four, maybe, you know, if you’re lucky. We have eight, so that part’s exciting.”
Hodges, a former nuclear engineering major at the Naval Academy, also isn’t much for hyperbole. Since arriving a year ago to help plug a hole for a team coming off a 5-7 season, he’s now an elder statesman of a team coming off a College Football Playoff appearance, but says it doesn’t feel that way.
“There’s really, really not much of a difference,” Hodges, who was the Big 12 defensive newcomer of the year, said. “I know we made it where we made it last year but [strength coach] Kaz [Kazadi] and our strength staff have just done a great job: one, humbling us; two, being honest — we lost the championship game by 60; three, we’re projected just as low as we were last year to finish in the Big 12 and in the national media. So the feelings aren’t different. We’ve got a chip on our shoulder. I really like the vibes we’re going through. I really like our vibes.”
But unlike last year, their season opener won’t be a sleepy nonconference game on a Friday night. This year’s rematch with Colorado is a preview of a future Big 12 matchup as the Buffs prepare to enter the league next year, with the star power of Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders, along with an almost completely new roster after 71 players entered the transfer portal as Sanders embarked on an extreme makeover.
“Wherever Deion goes, people are interested,” Dykes said. “There will be a lot of eyes on the game.”
Frogs quarterback Chandler Morris started against the Buffaloes last season before suffering an MCL sprain in the third quarter and giving way to Duggan, who rode his hot hand all the way to the national title game. This year, he’s the entrenched starter after watching and waiting a year longer than he expected.
“Dude has what it takes,” offensive lineman Steven Coleman said. “He was already the starter. He’s been doing a great job working, has been a great job of being a leader, even if we’re just doing offseason conditioning. He’s gonna do a good job this year.”
Along with Morris, the newcomers like Richardson are excited to see where this year’s team can go, starting Sept. 2.
“We’re gonna have to come out there and earn it,” he said. “Everybody’s bought into what [the coaches] are trying to push to what we’re trying to accomplish. And that’s ultimately to win a Big 12 championship and win a national championship. I think we’ve got all the talent in the world to do it. And I’m just so excited to show everybody what we got.”
Dykes and TCU hope to keep the momentum going as the Big 12 morphs into a sprawling 16-team conference next year, an opportunity to sell an exciting future with a path to a 12-team playoff. The Horned Frogs are eager to shake off a humbling end to an otherwise remarkable season and keep climbing.
“It feels like we have a strong future in our program,” Dykes said. “This team has an opportunity to be pretty good. We’ll see how it all works out and how it comes together. But I think we’re in a pretty, pretty good place to start with.”
And he’s just as curious how it all will start unfolding in that first September weekend in Fort Worth against Sanders and the Buffaloes.
“If I didn’t have a game on Sept. 2, I’d watch it,” Dykes said. “It’ll be interesting to see who’s playing for them — and for us.”