Steven Johnson: After beatdown of No. 18 Oklahoma, time for TCU to start thinking big
In just four games Sonny Dykes has accomplished his fair share of history.
He’s off to the best start for a first-year head coach at TCU since Francis Schmidt started 9-0 in 1929.
Dykes snapped TCU’s eight game losing streak to Oklahoma dating back to 2014, just a week after he snapped the program’s two-game losing streak to SMU.
It’s been quite the start for Dykes and it comes when expectations were relatively low. TCU was picked to finish seventh in the preseason Big 12 media poll and many pundits had the Horned Frogs scraping to get over .500.
Well they’re two games away from that mark already and it’s time to think much bigger than just winning six or seven games.
How big? How far can TCU go this year?
“I think we can be a damned good football,” center and team captain Steve Avila said after he was asked how good TCU is.
Dykes had an idea that his team was capable of performances like this. But it’s one thing to believe it and it’s another to see play out against a blue blood like Oklahoma.
“You could see moments where things look pretty good, then we would kind of get in our own way. Today, for the most part we didn’t do that. Guys made plays,” Dykes said. “Any time you have a chance to play against those guys, you’re going to want to make a name for yourself and I think we certainly did that.”
Truthfully, the preseason predictions never made much sense considering the amount of production TCU returned on both sides of the ball.
The Horned Frogs basically brought back 10 starters and added players like Alan Ali and Jordan Hudson. You mix that experience with Dykes and Garrett Riley’s system then it’s no surprise that the Horned Frogs offense has emerged as one of the country’s best.
The defense was awful last year, that’s fair to say, but TCU brought in key additions like Mark Perry, Johnny Hodges and Josh Newton to bolster that side of the ball. Each of them has been a keen pick up.
Perry and Hodges lead the team in tackles entering the Oklahoma game. Newton leads the team in interceptions and Hodges had a team-high 10 tackles plus a sack against Oklahoma.
All of these additions, plus the mentality instilled by Dykes has TCU looking much better than a team was picked finish seventh in the Big 12.
“I think guys were just tired of losing, of being talked down on the last three years. We deserved it, we didn’t play very since I’ve been here and I think guys were just tired of it. It was a fresh start with Coach Dykes and Coach Riley,” quarterback Max Duggan said after gaining 400 yards of total offense and five touchdowns.
The way Dykes has prepared the Horned Frogs the two weeks is among the reasons why TCU could be much better than expected. Last week was an emotional rivalry week, this week was a ranked matchup against a blue blood.
TCU handled each week the same, blocking out the noise that could knock them off of their focus.
“A lot of people talked about their stats against us, all the national championships but we knew it was our team vs. their team,” Duggan said. “It doesn’t matter about what they did in the past. We just had to focus on ourselves.”
That focus is what makes the Horned Frogs dangerous. The explosive offensive and cagey defense helps too.
Teams take after their leaders and Dykes has excelled at remaining cool and collected. As the dust barely began to settle after their loss, some of TCU’s players were already looking ahead to next week’s game at Kansas.
“We understand that every week is going to be a dogfight. No one cares about what you did last week, you can score 70, you can score 2,” Duggan said. “We have to make sure we do exactly the same thing we’ve done the first four weeks. That’s preparing, staying eyes down and not being worried about the outside world. Once you let everybody tell you how good you are, that’s when you get beat.”
A Top 25 ranking and potentially College Gameday could come after TCU’s performance, but don’t expect the Horned Frogs to think they’ve arrived just yet.
“You gotta go back to work and figure out how to win the next game. In this league every week is going to be a challenge, so we’re going to enjoy this and worry about Kansas,” Dykes said.
