TCU football’s quarterback competition is wide open, Sonny Dykes says
Max Duggan has started 29 of the last 32 games at quarterback for TCU football. He’s in the mix to remain the Frogs’ starting quarterback going into 2022 but the job won’t be handed to him.
As TCU transitions into the Sonny Dykes era, the quarterback position will be the most talked about throughout the offseason. Dykes is known for developing quarterbacks and sounded open-minded when it came to the potential 2022 starter.
“We’re going to do the same thing at that position that we do at every other position. We’re going to roll the balls out. We’re going to let the guys compete,” Dykes said. “We’re going to watch everything they do. We’re going to monitor everything they do. Then we’re going to pick the quarterback that the team responds to the best and that moves the team the best. It’s a really simple equation.
“Typically everybody in the program knows it before the coaches know it. You know the players usually figure it out a long time before we do, just say, ‘Hey this guy is the best.’ So our hope is that this room right now has the eventual starter, but at the same time, if we have a chance to improve the roster we’re going to improve the roster.”
Dykes has repeatedly said he looks for accuracy, decision-making and leadership qualities from the quarterback position.
Duggan has improved in the accuracy department since joining TCU, completing 64% of his passes last season (145 of 227). He threw for 2,048 yards with 16 touchdowns to six interceptions.
Another returning option is Chandler Morris, who started two games last season. Morris had a breakout game in leading TCU to an upset victory over then-No. 12 Baylor. In limited action, Morris completed 66% of his passes (50 of 76) for 695 yards with three TDs and no interceptions.
Sam Jackson, Trent Battle and Alexander Honig were true fr eshmen last season who remain on the roster. Jackson played in two games last season and probably has the highest ceiling of the group. Luke Pardee is another quarterback on the current roster.
But Dykes and his staff are also scouring the NCAA transfer portal for potential QB fits. Former Southlake Carroll quarterback Quinn Ewers, who spent one season at Ohio State, met with a few TCU coaches (with Dykes not attending) when he explored his potential options before landing at Texas.
There are several other highlytouted QBs in the portal, too, and Dykes has become known for his success with transfers. At SMU, he had Shane Buechele (Texas) and Tanner Mordecai (Oklahoma). At Cal, he brought in Davis Webb (Texas Tech) and helped develop him into a NFL Draft pick.
“From a football perspective, the No. 1 thing we’re supposed to do is field the best team humanly possible. OK?” Dykes said. “And the way you field the best team humanly possible is you are always trying to improve your roster. So the way I look at it is we owe it to all the guys who normally sit in these seats here (in the TCU meeting room) every single day to go out and find the very best players that we can to add to the roster.
“So if we add 20 new players (from the transfer portal), that’s certainly not an indictment on our current players as much as it is to say, ‘Look, it’s our duty to field the very best team that we can.’ If we think there’s 20 players out there that we can improve our team with, then we owe it to them, we owe it to everybody at TCU, to do that.”
Schedule change
TCU is going to open the season at Colorado on Friday, Sept. 2, not Saturday, Sept. 3, the school said. A kickoff time has not been announced.
The matchup will mark the official beginning of the Dykes era at TCU.
It will be the first football game played between TCU and Colorado.
