With QB Josh Hoover, TCU faces its most difficult player evaluation ever
The last few months crushed the hopes, dreams and needs for not only TCU but scores of other college football programs.
Not in terms of winning a game, a conference title, or reaching the playoff, but rules and guidelines that were going to bring sanity, and sustainable cost structure, to major college football. Didn’t happen.
The NCAA exists in name only, rules are for suckers, and the game is a deregulated version of the NFL. Until otherwise detailed, and enforced, these are the rules — cash. In the NCAA’s Power Four model, there is the revenue share cap for an entire athletic department, and the additional money that you can spend on top of that, which this fall and current recruiting cycle has demonstrated has no limit.
Whatever the Deloitte clearinghouse for proposed individual player NIL contracts was supposed to do has failed.
Caught in the middle of this financial tsunami of stupid spending are schools like TCU, and so many others, that want to compete in Power Four football, need to win and can’t afford misses.
This gives a handful of players, like TCU quarterback Josh Hoover, leverage as his current team tries to determine a cost-benefit analysis of its quarterback.
Hoover has one more year of eligibility remaining, and has not announced his intentions for 2026. Since legally paying players became a thing, this is by far the most consequential player decision TCU has faced.
Josh Hoover’s ‘market value’
Hoover plans to play against USC in the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 30. These days, you have to triple-check whether a player has announced his intentions to put his name in the portal, “opted out” or just bailed out on his current college team.
The portal opens Jan. 2 and closes Jan. 16.
In the spring, Hoover passed on a lucrative offer from Tennessee to stay “for less” at TCU. He made it clear he was happy at TCU. He liked the coaching staff, particularly offensive coordinator Kendal Briles; in Hoover’s two-plus seasons as the starting quarterback, Briles was his offensive coordinator.
Briles has left TCU to accept the same position at South Carolina, and was replaced by UConn offensive coordinator Gordon Sammis. On Tuesday after practice, Sammis said he is part of the “recruiting process” to keep Hoover.
“I have to be able to sell the fact that we are going to do great things here,” he said.
Hoover’s pro prospects, at least today, are limited. One NFL scout said if Hoover came out for the NFL draft in 2026, he would likely go undrafted.
Hoover is like an increasing number of college players who can make real money by not turning pro. He’s a 65% career passer who has thrown 71 touchdowns with 33 interceptions.
Since Hoover replaced Chandler Morris as the starting QB in October 2023, the team is 19-12, including 17-8 in the last two years.
If Hoover puts his name in the transfer portal, he will likely join Arizona State’s Sam Leavitt, Cincinnati’s Brendan Sorsby and Mississippi’s Trinidad Chambliss as the top quarterbacks available. Chambliss is petitioning the NCAA for an additional year of eligibility, so his availability for next season is a maybe.
Sorsby is already a reported target for Texas Tech.
A proven college quarterback is worth north of $2 million in 2025. That figure will likely be over $3 million in 2026.
TCU head coach Sonny Dykes has made it clear they want to keep Hoover, and there is cautious optimism he will stay for one more year.
If the dollar figure is too much, why TCU should let Josh Hoover walk
With Hoover, TCU has been good, inconsistent, and not to the level it aspires. At times, he is an electric passer. Other times, particularly when his offensive line breaks down, and he’s asked to make plays with his feet, it’s not there. In 2025 he led the Big 12 in interceptions (13).
This is not entirely his fault, but since he became the starting quarterback, the team has not come close to reaching the Big 12 title game, or playoff.
Hoover has not had the trajectory of other TCU quarterbacks who took time to develop, and the team reaped enormous dividends when they did, players like Andy Dalton, Trevone Boykin, Kenny Hill and Max Duggan.
Seven times under those four quarterbacks TCU finished in the top 10. TCU will likely finish out of the Top 25 for the third straight season, only the second three-year window the team has finished unranked since 2000.
If TCU believes retaining Hoover guarantees only a good chance to repeat the last two years of production, and specifically the win/loss record, it may be a better decision to let him walk and risk the consequences of developing a new guy.
Since late November 2023, TCU has let two talented quarterbacks leave because of its commitment to Hoover.
Chandler Morris knew he had lost the starting job, and after graduating in the spring of 2024, he transferred to North Texas. He played one season in Denton before he transferred to Virginia, where this season he led the Cavaliers to the ACC title game, and nearly the playoff.
Last year, Dykes told former Aledo quarterback Hauss Hejny that Hoover was the starter; Hejny transferred to Oklahoma State. Hejny was the starting QB for the Cowboys, but suffered a season-ending broken foot in the team’s first game of the season.
The next man up as TCU’s QB2 is freshman Adam Schobel. He was highly regarded coming out of Columbus, Texas, and comes from a long line of TCU alums. At some point, he has to play, or leave.
Or, TCU can go the portal route and pay for the older guy with Power Four experience.
The going rate for a quarterback with Hoover’s resume is insanely expensive, and TCU has a significant decision to make if its guy is worth that price.
This story was originally published December 17, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
