In replacing his defensive coordinator, TCU’s Sonny Dykes owns one major mistake
When TCU scored 45 points and lost by 24 at Oklahoma in the final game of this season, Joe Gillespie should have started calling a Realtor.
That game was not the reason TCU head coach Sonny Dykes decided to change out his defensive coordinator after his second year in Fort Worth, but it was the final impression on a season full of bad ones.
“It wasn’t based on that. It wasn’t based on one thing,” Dykes said in a phone interview on Monday evening. “What you are looking for as a team, and as a staff, is improvement from week to week and over the season. This year, we took a step back, obviously.
“We might have been a few plays away from an 8-4 record and everyone says that’s a good year. It’s our job as a staff to say that 8-4 isn’t good enough, because it’s not.”
Rather than finish 8-4, TCU was one of the most disappointing teams in the nation with a 5-7 record. The problems were many, including one that Dykes called “Assumption.”
“When you have success you think there is going to be more carryover; we assumed too much,” Dykes said. “I assumed too much; that there would be more carryover from last year and there just wasn’t. That was my fault.”
Almost nothing carried over from last season’s 13-2 team that defeated Michigan in the Fiesta Bowl, and reached the national title game.
What transpired in 2023 looks closer to what this program has done since 2016. With the exceptions of the 2017 and 2022 seasons, when the Horned Frogs finished a combined 24-5, the program is under .500.
Between 2016, ‘18, ‘19, ‘20, ‘21 and ‘23, TCU is 34-38 with four sub .500 seasons. Since joining the Big 12 in 2012, TCU has been more of a “rebuild” rather than a “reload” program.
In TCU’s 12 seasons in the Big 12, the program has finished in the top 10 of the final AP poll four times; every other season the team finished unranked.
“It’s been a hard year,” Dykes said. “Your job as a head coach is to get your team to perform collectively better than individually, and this is the first time in my 30 years of coaching we really didn’t do that.”
This 2023 season was the first time Dykes suffered a losing record since his first full season at SMU, in 2018 when the Mustangs finished 5-7.
Other than assumption, a big problem for TCU this season was defense. That unit ranked 100th in the nation in yards allowed, and 78th in points per game.
Even when TCU reached the national title game in the 2022 season, Gillespie’s defense was not great. That group allowed 27.8 points and 417 yards of offense per game. In TCU’s final three games of the ‘22 season, opponents scored 31, 45 and 65 points.
That defense also had a knack for making plays, and getting stops, whenever necessary.
Dykes said the decision to move on from Gillespie was not made until after the season was over. He and Gillespie met on multiple occasions when Dykes decided to change.
“It was a cumulative thing, not one specific area,” Dykes said. “Joe Gillespie is one of the best people I’ve ever known in coaching, and is an outstanding coach. We just felt we needed to make this change and go in a different direction.”
Gillespie has been replaced by former Boise State head coach Andy Avalos; Avalos was fired by Boise State in mid November despite a 22-14 record. Avalos had previously worked as Oregon’s defensive coordinator, in 2019 and ‘20.
Expect TCU’s defense to look different from Gillespie’s preferred 3-3-5 scheme. That’s a change from Dykes’ stance near the end of the season when he said he was committed to that alignment.
“It will be a little different; more varied fronts,” Dykes said. “More pressure, and more simulated pressure; we will try to disguise our coverages more. I wanted our defense to be more versatile.
“In the Big 12 now, you are going to see everything. Teams that spread you out, and teams that want to run right at you. Now more than ever you need a defense that is more adaptable.”
The eyeball test says some of TCU’s problems on defense this season were not scheme but talent. It showed in the team’s 45-42 Week 1 loss to Colorado, and it never much improved.
Along the defensive front seven, one player showed out consistently, tackle Damonic Williams.
The linebackers struggled to play in space. The line didn’t pressure the passer. The secondary was asked to hold coverage far too long.
“We don’t need to start from scratch; we have good enough players to be a successful team, and a championship-level program,” Dykes said. “We had eight returning starters to our defense, and the pieces we did lose were key.”
TCU never found adequate replacements for defensive end Dylan Horton, linebacker Dee Winters, and cornerback Tre Tomlinson. All three were NFL draft picks in the spring.
Rather than prepare for a bowl game, Dykes is recruiting now and in the coming weeks TCU will announce its incoming class of new players.
The defense will look different, and entering his third year at TCU he has learned one valuable lesson — assume nothing.
This story was originally published December 12, 2023 at 11:32 AM.
