Sonny Dykes knows offense. But building a defense tops his wish list for TCU football.
TCU wanted a coach with an offensive background taking over its football program. Former coach Gary Patterson is known as one of the top defensive minds of this generation and the school didn’t feel a defensive coach should follow in those footsteps.
That’s part of the reason TCU hired Sonny Dykes, who turned SMU into one of the top offenses in the country. But Dykes didn’t talk about offense when asked about what he hopes TCU’s identity becomes under him.
Instead, Dykes said, “If you want to win championships, especially in the Big 12, or really anywhere in football, you have to play defense. You have to play defense at a very, very high level. That’s where it all begins.”
Dykes pointed to Saturday’s Big 12 championship game between Oklahoma State and Baylor. Those are the Big 12’s top two scoring defenses.
Dykes went on to say cliches such as “defense wins championships” and “defense travels” are cliches because they’re true.
TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati said most of his conversations with Dykes early on in his tenure has centered on the defense. TCU is coming off one of its worst defensive seasons in programs history, allowing 222 yards rushing a game. The Frogs allowed 5.8 yards per carry.
“You’ve got to play defense. There’s no question. You can’t just hope to outscore people,” Donati said. “It’s ironic since we’ve been on board, we’ve spoken more the last few days on defense and solidifying that side of the ball. He’s hyper focused on how to fix our defense and get that into a place where we can compete next year.”
All of it leads to the most important hire on Dykes’ staff — defensive coordinator. Dykes is currently vetting candidates and doesn’t have a timeline on when a DC may be in place.
He doesn’t want to rush the hire given its significance. Among coaches who are expected to be candidates include Tulsa defensive coordinator Joseph Gillespie and Georgia co-defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann.
Gillespie is the former head coach at Stephenville High School who has been at Tulsa since 2015. He has served as Tulsa’s defensive coordinator the past three years.
TCU and Dykes are intrigued by Gillespie because he helped transition the Hurricane from a base 4-man front to a 3-3-5 alignment. That scheme is similar to what Iowa State runs and has had success in slowing down Big 12 offenses.
Schumann, meanwhile, is a rising star in the industry and Georgia has the nation’s top-ranked defense. It’s unclear how much, if any, interest Schumann would have in TCU but he did play high school football at McKinney Boyd.
Dykes is expected to have others candidates on his list as well.
Whoever comes in as the next DC will be a defining hire for Dykes and the program.
“To become that kind of elite football program that we want, we have to do that defensively,” he said. “Obviously you have to be able to score, especially in the Big 12. You have to be able to score consistently. You have to be able to figure out how to utilize your personnel. You have to be willing to change and adapt and try to stay ahead of the game, and that’s one of the things we take great pride in doing is making sure we do everything we can to be on cutting edge whether it’s defense, offense or special teams.”
This story was originally published December 1, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
