Sonny Dykes plans to look in the mirror when evaluating TCU's blowout title game loss

There’s no other way to describe what happened to TCU in the CFP National Championship Game than getting blitzed. The Horned Frogs, who entered Monday night at 13-1, got whacked early by Georgia and never found their footing again as they lost 65-7.

After the game, Sonny Dykes tried to put a positive spin on the loss during his postgame press conference. He said that, while it wasn’t the outcome they were hoping, this kind of loss will give his program an opportunity to self-evaluate after having what worked for them all season long finally fail in emphatic fashion.

“That’s the good thing, I think, about our program and, really, our coaching staff. We’ll look in the mirror,” said Dykes. “That’s kind of what I told the players afterward. We’ve got to look in the mirror. And it all starts with me. Then it works down from there.”

“We had a formula that worked where we played pretty well for 14 straight weeks. We carried the same formula into this game, we didn’t do anything different. I didn’t have any sense that our players were in a different place. Their preparation was good. There was zero different between preparation for this game from what there was for the Michigan game nine or ten days ago,” Dykes said. “So, I think what happens sometimes is you get on a run like we’ve been on, you play a lot of games like we played this year that are emotional games that you put everything you have into it to win them…And then we got out there tonight. Georgia did a great job, got off to a fast start. We answered and then, for whatever reason, it went downhill from there.”

TCU went three and out on their first drive. Then, just five plays later, they gave Georgia a lead they wouldn’t give up the rest of the night. It was an avalanche as the Bulldogs amassed 589 yards of offense while scoring nine touchdowns. As for TCU, they scored just once after a massive 60-yard catch from Derius Davis put them in position. Beyond that, they produced just 188 yards of offense while coughing up three turnovers.

While it may be of little comfort now to the Horned Frog faithful, Dykes said this is now about turning this crushing loss into a lesson for next season. In the end, all he can hope for now is that this teaches him as a first-year head coach and his teams to come what not to do on the biggest of stages.

“We’ll sit down as a staff, begin trying to figure out what happened tomorrow, and make sure it doesn’t happen again, and learn from it. I think that’s the best thing that happens when you face adversity like this,” said Dykes. “You make mistakes, you learn from them, and you get better as a program and as a coach. So, next time, you handle the situation a little bit better…We’ll self evaluate, make corrections, and go from there.”