What is lowering Sonny Dykes’ chances to land the TCU football coaching job | Opinion
Even before Gary Patterson “resigned” from his spot as TCU’s head football coach, the worst secret in Texas college football was the man who eyed the job from afar.
Not that afar. Just 41 miles.
As the profile of SMU’s football program rose in prominence, so has the interest in coach Sonny Dykes.
The son of former Texas Tech coach Spike Dykes did talk to Texas Tech about its head coaching vacancy, and sources said he has spoken to TCU officials multiple times about its opening.
Dykes would have gone to Tech, but the offer went to Joey McGuire. The job Sonny Dykes wants is TCU.
Sources said he has not made these coaching searches a point of discussion with his staff or his team. Some members of the team and staff have resigned themselves that he will leave The Hilltop, while others are convinced he’s staying.
According to The Dallas Morning News, SMU has offered a contract extension to Dykes. It includes a raise that would nearly double his salary to $4 million and pay increases to assistants. Facilities would also be upgraded.
He has not signed the contract for a reason.
Dykes wants TCU, but TCU is just not sure it wants Dykes right now.
He makes sense for a variety of reasons, but the longer this search goes the greater the chances are that Sonny Dykes will remain at SMU.
The way the season is trending for SMU, TCU officials would have a hard time selling a coach who presided over a team that had a third straight late-season crash.
If Dykes is going to land the job he wants, the Mustangs need to win.
After starting the season 7-0, which included a win at TCU in September, the Mustangs have dropped two straight: a last-second loss at No. 17 Houston, which they followed with a blah performance in a defeat at Memphis.
SMU is staring at the real possibility of losing three out of four; it will play at No. 5 Cincinnati on Nov. 20.
In 2020, SMU started the messy COVID season 5-0 but lost three of its final five games.
In 2019, SMU opened 8-0. The Mustangs’ game at Memphis on Nov. 2 drew ESPN’s College Game Day, and was the nationally televised featured matchup that evening.
The Ponies lost that night, and three of its final five games, including a bowl defeat to Florida Atlantic.
Dykes has been at SMU since December of 2017, and in these last three years the Mustangs’ record of 24-9 is the best mark this program has enjoyed since before it was handed “The Death Penalty” by the NCAA in 1987.
He has done something no coach has been able to achieve since SMU brought football back in 1989. Dykes has made SMU football a winner and has made it relevant.
He is an offensive-oriented coach who has embraced the NCAA’s transfer portal, both qualities TCU prefers in a candidate.
Dykes knows every major person involved with TCU’s search for a new coach. It’s hard to find anyone who will say a negative word about Dykes.
After TCU finished 2016 with a 6-7 record, Patterson was “encouraged” to bring Dykes to his staff.
Dykes spent the 2017 season with TCU as an offensive analyst. The Frogs finished 11-3, reached the Big 12 title game, won the Alamo Bowl and finished ninth in the final AP Poll.
Dykes was hired by SMU before TCU defeated Stanford in the Alamo Bowl. That 2017 season was TCU’s most recent “great” year.
Long before he went to SMU, Dykes built his résumé with three solid years at Louisiana Tech from 2010 to 2012.
He was then hired by California, which was a terrible fit. Dykes was a Texan coaching football in Northern California at a school that is more like the University of Chicago than it is USC.
He was fired after four years in Berkeley, but has since rebuilt his reputation.
Sonny Dykes is a solid, but flawed, candidate.
As much as he may want TCU, TCU has not offered him this job just yet for a reason.
These finishes are a concern.
This story was originally published November 12, 2021 at 12:28 PM.
