Steven Johnson: TCU has big questions it needs to answer after ugly loss to K-State
Did the University of Georgia sneak a platoon of Bulldogs up to Kansas in the middle of the night without anybody knowing?
I ask such a silly question because for most of Saturday night’s 41-3 beatdown to Kansas State it had to feel like a repeat of the national championship defeat from January for most TCU fans.
Except this time the Horned Frogs weren’t getting hammered by a roster full of future NFL players and five-star recruits. TCU was outclassed by a team that is the third or fourth best team in the Big 12.
Shortly after the news came out earlier this season that TCU would pause its rivalry game with SMU, coach Sonny Dykes said that if TCU wanted to be a big boy program then it had to start acting like one.
Dykes was talking about having more home games then, but this philosophy also applies here. Big boy programs don’t allow over 200 yards in a quarter or 400 in a half. The performance was so bad that Dykes was almost at a loss for words at the podium.
“I’m embarrassed, I think our players are, I hope they are, they should be,” Dykes said after the blowout.
If the players didn’t feel that embarrassment after the game, then it should hit once they start scrolling their phones and see the well-earned scolding from the fanbase.
It’s one thing to take a step back after the magical 2022 season, but a step back is supposed to be 8-4 or a competitive 7-5. At this point, there’s a realistic chance TCU might not win another game and that shouldn’t be what this program is facing just months after an appearance in the national championship game.
TCU signed one of its best recruiting classes in program history and landed another strong transfer class the staff. According to the 247Sports team talent rankings, TCU has more blue chip recruits on its roster this year than last season’s championship finalist team.
It’s not just recruiting rankings, the coaching staff believed in the talent too. We heard all preseason how the Horned Frogs were deeper at receiver, cornerback and linebacker. But you can’t make up quality with just quantity.
Finding a Quentin Johnston, Steve Avila or Max Duggan in the transfer portal is near impossible unless you’re a big boy program and right now TCU seems further from that tier than it did on that rainy January night in Los Angeles.
So now, the focus has been on next year and there are some big questions that need to be answered.
Question 1: Is the 3-3-5 really the right defense for TCU?
Schematically there’s nothing wrong with Joe Gillespie’s defense. Iowa State, San Diego State and other programs have had success running it in the past, but there is a reason the scheme isn’t run wide spread across the sport. It puts a lot of pressure on your defensive line and to be frank, TCU doesn’t have the bodies up front to run it effectively.
How many times have we seen a team like Kansas State push the Horned Frogs around in the run game? How many times have quarterbacks seemingly had all day to throw due to the lack of pressure? Against the two teams that had good offenses this season, the Horned Frogs were decimated by Colorado and the Wildcats. Dykes said it himself that Kansas State could’ve scored as much as they needed to.
What we saw from the unit over the last five or six weeks had more to do with the quality of the opponent than improvement on TCU’s end. Dykes says he had high expectations for the defense and the unit has failed to live up to them. Big boy programs have made changes for less, what will Dykes do if this is the effort he receives the next four games?
Next question: Is it time to pull the plug on the Kendal Briles experiment?
At this point of the season it’s fair to say Briles’ first season in Fort Worth has been underwhelming. There are some excuses to point to like Chandler Morris’ injury or the offensive line taking a step back or this receiver not healthy.
All of it is noise at this point. The Horned Frogs don’t have an identity on offense besides the fact they go fast. The offense has been one of the worst units in the red zone in the country and that was even when they were averaging over 35 points a game.
The players are beginning to understand that fact.
“I think we need to figure out who we are again,” offensive tackle Andrew Coker said. “I think we need to figure out what we want to do again.”
Take out the win over a mediocre BYU team last week and TCU’s offensive production has dropped by the week. No one was expecting the Horned Frogs to have the best offense in the country, but there’s too much talent to only score three points against Kansas State. Troy scored 13! UCF scored 31 with backup quarterback in Manhattan.
Fans are often emotional and overly dramatic, but the Horned Frog fanbase was spot on in its pushback when Dykes made the hire to replace Garrett Riley. It was also going to be a risk to spend goodwill on Briles and that gamble hasn’t paid off.
Coker said it was a gut check for everyone in the building and that includes the coaching staff which leads to the final question.
Question 3: Will TCU make a bowl game this year?
As someone who believed the Horned Frogs had a chance to win 10 games in the preseason (my bad y’all), it would still be a surprise if the Horned Frogs didn’t reach a bowl, but the final four games are daunting.
Like TCU, rivals Texas Tech (away, Nov. 2) and Baylor (home, Nov. 18) are scratching and clawing for bowl eligibility and would love to keep TCU under .500. Quinn Ewers was injured in Texas’ (home, Nov. 11) win over Houston Saturday, but the Longhorns will still be a double-digit favorite regardless of his status.
Then there’s the final game in Norman with Oklahoma (away, Nov. 25) wanting payback for last year’s blowout. Things could get bleak fast, but at the same time the Big 12 is so strange and wide open that it’s still more than plausible for the Horned Frogs to be playing in the postseason.
But it all starts with how TCU handles the open week.
“We have four games left and we have to figure out what we want to do with those games,” Coker said. “We can beat every single team on our schedule left, we know we can. The problem is do we have the confidence and do we have the attention to detail to have that success?
“I think we really need to question ourselves, players, coaches, everybody in our walls has to really question themselves about what we want to do with these next four weeks.
The next four weeks are critical not just for the present, but also the future of the program.
This story was originally published October 22, 2023 at 9:49 AM.
