TCU head coach Sonny Dykes says it’s time to move on after emphatic win
TCU’s season opener against North Carolina on Monday could’ve scarcely gone better.
The Horned Frogs dominated en route to a 48-14 victory despite many national pundits favoring Bill Belichick and the Tar Heels.
TCU head coach Sonny Dykes explained how the Horned Frogs fed off those predictions and why he thought they were seemingly overlooked by the national media.
“We talked a little bit after the game,” Dykes said Wednesday in Fort Worth. “I mean, to me, there was just a lot of conversation about this, and I understand that. I mean, it was, it’s a big deal when you’ve got the winningest, or, I guess, the second-winningest NFL coach ever, and won the most Super Bowls, and all the stuff coming to college football, and so that’s going to lead to a lot of conversation, a lot of interest in the game.
“You look at us in ‘22, first-year staff with a five-win program. We start 12-0, we win 13 games, we beat Michigan — only game that they lost in two years — and played for a national championship. And seems like everybody since then has been ‘yeah, but’ about TCU football, and I think it’s a little bit of the same thing with this, but I think that’s just kind of the way it is.
“I mean, I think that blue bloods are blue bloods for a reason. And you know, we’d like to get to the point where people take our program seriously, and I think really the only way to do that is to continue to win, and I think that probably we have to win more than other people have to win to catch the attention of people. I think that’s just the way it is.”
Dykes commended his team for the maturity it showed in winning a game with so much media attention and hype, but said it was time for the team to move on.
“I felt good about this team, you know, because we were mature,” Dykes said. “That’s the one thing I thought we talked a lot about before the season started, was just kind of the unique makeup of this group, just the fact that they are a mature team, and they have been able to focus on stuff that’s important and what matters, and not get caught up and sidetracked. And so it’s going to be important for us to do that moving forward. You just gotta move on, put it behind us.”
Dykes said he was proud of the way the Horned Frogs practiced Wednesday after the whirlwind of being in the national spotlight.
“Our guys had a great practice today,” he said. “We got back late. Think we were like, 4:15 in the morning, Tuesday morning, and so I was a little worried about what we’d be like today, getting up early and practicing. Our guys had a really, really good practice, really attentive, really focused. Did not hear one player talking about the game or any of the sideshow that accompanies the game or any of that stuff.”
The Horned Frogs are off this weekend before their home opener at 7 p.m. Sept. 13 against Abilene Christian, an FCS opponent that lost to Tulsa 35-7 in its season opener Saturday.
TCU is 2-0 against Abilene Christian, though their last meeting came in 1930.
