Sonny Dykes takes blame for 5-7 record at TCU in 2023

TCU went from about as high as you can get to pretty low over the course of two seasons under Sonny Dykes. That drop off last fall was a disappointment after what they’d done the season prior and, with that, their head coach thinks it was in large part his fault.

Dykes spoke about the Horned Frogs’ struggles in 2023 during an interview while at Big 12 Media Days on Tuesday. He said the blame starts with him for not doing enough earlier on in their offseason before kickoff ever came.

“It all starts with me,” Dykes stated. “I mean I did a really poor job last year of recognizing some issues that we had early and not getting them addressed.”

For one, Dykes said TCU didn’t get their spring efforts going until later on than he thinks they should have. That apparently set them back to the point where they tried to get themselves adjusted all season long. For two, Dykes also said the program didn’t go enough to stop some of the privilege that came from the year prior when they played for the national title and finished at 13-2.

“You know, we felt like we were playing catch up the whole time,” explained Dykes. “We got back from the national championship late and gave our players some time off. All of a sudden, we’re in the middle of February and we’re just now starting conditioning. Really, we spent 12 games last year trying to get caught up.”

“It just starts with a mentality – showing up every day, competing, and fighting,” continued Dykes. “When you have success like we did in year one, I think you have to battle entitlement and we obviously didn’t do a very good job of fighting it the way we should have.”

After tying their school record for wins in 2022, TCU went back down to five wins in 2023. They lost their season opener at home to Colorado and then went on to lose six of their final eight.

That’s all that went wrong for TCU. Now, for 2024, Dykes thinks they’ve done a much better job at correcting those mistakes with their approach.

“We took a much more proactive approach in team building, trying to create chemistry. Did a lot more football in the offseason than we’ve done in the past,” Dykes said. “I think we’ve adapted. I feel like we’re way further ahead right now than we were during the season last year. So I think that has been key for us.”

Dykes put it on himself for the fall-off finish for TCU last year. The Horned Frogs are moving on, though, with them all set on not allowing that to happen in this upcoming one.

“Just a litany of excuses that we could come up with but the bottom line is we didn’t do a good job and, like I said, it started with me,” Dykes said. “We’ve got to do better.”

“We’ve been very intentional about what we do, when we do it, how we do it,” said Dykes. “I think the players understand that as well. The guys that were there for ’22 and saw what happened in ’23 don’t want to let that happen again.”