Sonny Dykes, TCU Horned Frogs Head Football Coach

We miss college football. Bennett takes the snap and the shotgun throws for the corner.

Brock Bowers one on one. Caught. Touchdown.

He ate him alive. Falls down into the end zone. Six more for Georgia. We can't wait for the 2023 season. Caleb Williams throws the fade in the corner.

Touchdown Trojans. And we're counting down the days to kick off. Are we there yet? No. Are we there yet? I said no. Are we there yet?

What's wrong with your ears? Here is your college football fix only on the Zach Gelb show. Alrighty, the debut of the college football fix as we are counting down the days to the start of the 2023 season. We're 102 days away from TCU kicking off their season up against Deion Sanders in Colorado. Last year we all remember what the Horn Frogs did. They made it all the way to the national championship game. So let's check in with TCU and their head football coach is entering his second season with the program.

And that of course is Sonny Dykes. Coach, appreciate the time as always. How are you? I'm doing well.

I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. Well thanks so much for coming on.

Always great to have you on the show. Last year was a remarkable season in year one for you at TCU. How do you look back when you think back to all those great memories of getting to the national championship game?

You know what it was? It was a lot of fun. It was one of those years where truthfully we had no expectations. I believe we were picked 7th or 8th in the preseason with Big 12 media and coaches and that type of stuff.

We only had 5 or 6 players on our roster that had never played in a bowl game. So it was one of those years that we got off to a decent start and the team kept getting better and better. And all of a sudden you win some games early and you think, well how can we play when we have some adversity? And we answered some of those questions and then it became, can we win on the road?

And then it was, can we win when we have some guys banged up? And the team just found ways to win games and was really proud of them and it made it a lot of fun. As I said, when you don't know what kind of team you're going to have and you look up and all of a sudden you're 12-0 and playing for a Big 12 championship and then you end up with a college football playoff and win the semifinal game. It was just a lot of fun. A lot of things that went our way but it really boiled down to a group of players that just decided they were going to do everything they could do to become great. We had tremendous leadership and a bunch of good players and it was a lot of fun to be a part of. I always appreciate your honesty because I remember when you joined us last year when you guys were 5-0 and you've been around the block a long time and you said, hey, this isn't my first rodeo. You never know what to expect in a year one and you were a bit surprised that the team was off to that 5-0 start.

You just said that basically once again. When was it in the season? Was there a certain moment when you said, okay, we're a whole lot better than what you guys thought you could be? Yeah, I think so. I think for us, as you said, we got off to a good start and then all of a sudden we were playing Oklahoma State and we found ourselves down 17 points in the second half of the game.

You kind of go, okay, we're going to find out what we're made of now. The guys came back and we rallied and won that game in overtime. I think at that point you started to say there's some maturity with this group. They're tough-minded guys. We won a couple of tough road games. Going to Kansas and playing up there, it was college game day and they were undefeated and having a lot of success.

They're a team that was very well coached and plays hard. That was a tough place to win, going to West Virginia and winning. Going to Texas and winning, I think everybody kind of had that game circled and said, that's when we're going to get that reality check and our players played outstanding. It was such a strange game. It was a game that I think everybody going in thought was going to be a high-scoring game. It was a game that was 3-0 us at halftime. We had to win a little bit differently in that game maybe than we thought we were going to.

Kind of the rally against Baylor and the walk-off field goal I think was pretty special. At that point you kind of started to say, well maybe this is a team of destiny and maybe we can keep this going. How did you build that trust, Sonny Dykes, going in there first year as a head coach at TCU, where it seemed like you guys were clicking on all cylinders, your staff and the players? I think the biggest thing is what you said.

It is truly about building trust and just making sure that you have a plan. I think our coaches did a really good job of coming in and we had a plan. Our strength and conditioning coach, Kaz Kazaty, is one of the best in the business.

We had worked together four years at SMU. We came in and said, here's exactly what we need to do to give ourselves a chance to be successful. It's going to start with strength and conditioning because that's the first thing we're going to do. It's also going to start with nutrition and recovery and rest and making sure that we're doing things off the field to allow us to continue to get better and better when we get on the field and have a chance to practice. And then coaches did a great job, I think, teaching scheme through the spring. We were able to find a couple of really important players in the transfer portal, I think, that answered some depth issues that we had. And all of a sudden we got into fall camp and I remember two or three weeks into camp thinking, you know what, this is a pretty good football team and it's going to have a chance to be competitive in all these games.

And let's see how it goes. And your quarterback was marvelous last year, Max Duggan, made it all the way to New York as a Heisman finalist. He wasn't even your starter before the season did commence. How did you look back on coaching Max Duggan? Well, Max was like a lot of guys on our team. I mean, he was a great leader, incredibly competitive, tough guy. Max had what you want quarterbacks to have and that's the ability to make everybody around them better.

You know, he just brought out the best in people, you know, just had tremendous leadership and was unselfish. That was what was fun about the team last year is that nobody cared about personal accolades. You know, we had eight players drafted.

I never heard anybody talk about the draft. We had a Jim Thorpe award winner, a Davey O'Brien award winner, a Johnny Unitas award winner. Darius Davis won the Kick Returner of the Year award. I mean, just all these different awards that these guys won individually.

They never talked about it. I mean, that didn't mean anything to them. It was all about the team and that made it fun to be around this group. You know, I think people ask me, well, did you have success because you had eight players drafted? I think eight players got drafted because we had success and I think we had success because eight players got drafted.

I think all of it worked well together. I mean, our guys, they were incredibly unselfish and they believed in each other and they cared about each other. The most important objective every single week for everybody in our program was to win the game.

And that made it a lot of fun to be a part of. When you're on the road recruiting, and we know TCU has been a good football program for a while, but after the year you guys just had, what are kids now saying when you walk into a high school about the TCU football program? Well, I think, look, the reason I took this job, the reason I came over from SMU is I felt like TCU was a program that could play for championships. And, you know, when I talked to our coaching staff and I said, here's why we're going to do this, that's what we talked about.

That's the very first time we met with the players. That's what we talked about. Look, this is a team that, you know, this is the kind of place where we think we can play for championships. So we played for a Big 12 championship and a national championship both this year, and we lost both of them. We've got to figure out a way to win those.

But that's the kind of place this is. And now when you sit down with the recruits and you talk to them, you say, hey, look, we can win a national championship here. It's not that far-fetched.

It's not that big of a dream. It's more of something that they just saw play out in front of them. You know, certainly we didn't play our best against Georgia. We ran into a very, very good football team. And, you know, they did a better job getting their team ready to play than we did.

But at the same time, I mean, we were there. And those recruits can see that. Their families can see that. The high school coaches in Texas and across the country can see that. And now those are the expectations for our program is to consistently be a championship-level program. Well, that's what annoyed me, Sonny Dykes, after the national championship game. Some said TCU showed they didn't belong in the college football playoff. And I'm like, hold on, wait a second. Did we forget that they just beat Michigan a few weeks prior?

I never got that convo. How about yourself? Yeah. I mean, you know, people say all kinds of things. And so, you know, you have to just worry about yourself and not everybody's got opinions. And most of the time they're not particularly good.

And so it is what it is. And you just go, look, if I had turned that game on as a casual fan, you know, I would just sit there and say, well, there's a huge difference between these two teams. And there certainly was that day. You know, the day that we played, Georgia played a lot better than we did. And Georgia had a better football team. And Georgia's coaching staff did a better job than we did getting them ready to play. And all those things, you know, played out. You know, if you go back and you look at our game against Michigan, you know, you're going to look at our team and go, man, that's a really good football team, you know, that beat another really good football team. And so, you know, you just have to do the best you can.

You don't worry about what people say, you know, because like I said, they, you know, they say a lot of things. I always wonder when a team has success, especially success that people didn't see coming, like your program had a year ago, how they respond the next season. I know there's so much changeover and turnover with the roster from year to year, especially now with the transfer portal and NL and all that. But how do you try as a coach not to have your kids get complacent and be even hungrier now this upcoming season? Well, I think the big thing that we try to do all the time is make sure the guys understand, look, just because some of you had success last year doesn't mean it's going to happen this year. You know, it's a different team.

It's a different chemistry. It's a different leadership. You know, it's key people that have moved on and that aren't here anymore. And now it's an opportunity for everybody else to show what they can do. And our guys understand that. I mean, you know, what happened last year has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on what's going to happen this year.

I mean, none. You know, the good thing is I do think our players do bring some confidence with us, but they also know that, you know, what they're capable of. And they also remember what happened against Georgia and how bad that game was. And so we're a work in progress. We're certainly not a finished product. We're going to be a team that, you know, has talent. The key for us is going to be how do we perform in those games that are going to be tight games. You know, there's going to be probably five, six, seven games that we play this year that could end up being one-score games. And how well we handle those opportunities and how well we handle those challenges will really determine what kind of season we had. And we handled them very well last year for the most part.

And we've got to handle them that way this year. How do you describe what type of quarterback Coach Sonny Dykes' Chandler Morris can be for you guys? Well, he's a lot different than Max. He's, you know, I think this is what we're doing offensively is really, truly kind of made for his skill set. He's a guy that, you know, has a very quick release, gets rid of the ball very fast, is a really good decision maker, you know, has a bigger arm than you think he does, kind of sneaky big arm. You know, really anticipates throws well, throws the ball to spots, you know, is good in the pocket. Just all the stuff that good quarterbacks do, he does.

He just doesn't have a ton of in-game experience. You know, I think that's the only thing that you worry about is, you know, how's he going to perform in games? Because, you know, he played against Colorado the first half of the game last year, started that game as a starting quarterback, got injured in the third quarter, so we didn't get to see him a whole lot last year. You know, saw him a little bit the year before, before I got here, you know, performed very well against Baylor and had some good games.

And so, you know, it's different when you're the starter than it is when you're coming off the bench. And so he's got some challenges in front of him, but he's very talented, he's very, very smart. As I said earlier, he's got a lot of important attributes that great quarterbacks have, so we think he's got a chance to be certainly one of the better quarterbacks in the Big 12 and maybe one of the better ones in the country. First game up against Deion Sanders, I know there's going to be a lot of hype around that one, especially with Deion trying to build at Colorado. How do you kind of view, I know you're 102 days away going up against and coaching up against Deion Sanders? Yeah, it'll be interesting. You know, I think none of us are going to know exactly who's playing and what the depth chart's going to look like. I'm sure they'll try to, you know, keep that as quiet as they possibly can as they get through fall camp and all that. Typically what happens when you play a team and they've got an important player or two from a different school, you go back and you watch that tape and you see what those kids are capable of and what their skills are and all that type of thing, and they're going to have so many new starters.

I mean, you're going to have to go back and watch probably 30 different schools where these kids have come from that are going to be significant contributors. So it's going to be a little bit of going into that game a little blind, probably just from a personnel standpoint. Now we'll be able to have a good idea, I think, on what they're going to do scheme-wise and all that.

So it'll be fun. I mean, it's going to be a big challenge for us. I'm sure, you know, that team will be very excited. It's a new era in Colorado football and I'm sure those guys are going to roll in here with a ton of confidence and they're going to have a lot of good players and it'll be a big challenge for us. You mentioned it earlier, Coach Sonny Dykes from the TCU Horned Frogs getting ready for year number two of his program at TCU.

You had eight players drafted, three actually by the Chargers, one of them being Quentin Johnston in the first round. What type of wide receiver are the Chargers and Justin Herbert getting? Well, they're getting a big play guy. I mean, I think that's the great thing about Quentin is Quentin's one of those really special wide receivers that can turn a five or six yard slant into a 60 or 70 yard touchdown. You know, he runs good routes but Quentin's really the magic happens when he gets his hand on the ball and people have to tackle him because he's a big strong guy and he can run through tackles and he's got a really impressive way of accelerating for a big guy. You know, he can get going fast really quickly and eats up the cushion on people and takes angles away from guys who are trying to tackle him. And so he's going to be a fun guy to watch.

I mean, he's got tremendous upside. Like I said earlier, great size, great strength, great explosive athlete. Best thing about Quentin is he loves the game of football and he's a hard worker. He's going to be the first guy on the field every day and the last guy off of it.

And I think at the end of the day, he has an opportunity to develop into a really special player. Last thing I'll ask you, I know earlier you mentioned how you lost to the Big 12 championship game and then also the national championship game. Coach, I only had one problem with your program last year and I'm a Heisman voter. I had Max on as a finalist. But when you're down at the one-yard line, why didn't Max get the ball in that overtime? Yeah, that's a good question. I think part of it was I think Max was so worn out and beat up.

A warrior. I think looking back, we probably wish he would have because he would have probably more than likely found a way to get us in the end zone and he always did. But I think that was probably the thinking was, look, this guy's pretty beat up and pretty worn out and let's give it to somebody who's a little bit more fresh. Well, heck of a season last year. We look forward to what's going to be in store this year for the TCU Horned Frogs. We really appreciate you doing this, Coach Sunnydike. Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me and always good to talk to you guys.