TCU’s post-national title game decline reaches a new low: Whatever happened to the Horned Frogs?

It was just 22 months ago that Sonny Dykes and TCU could do almost no wrong.

The Horned Frogs were the surprise story of the 2022 season. Their improbable run to the College Football Playoff national championship game – featuring a 12-0 start, heartbreaking finishes, the “Hypnotoad,” psychedelic post-game victory videos and a Fiesta Bowl victory in Michigan – endeared them to casual fans. They were the annoying perennial underdogs who kept finding ways to win.

Halfway through the 2024 season, it seems like nothing is going right. TCU’s 30-19 loss on Friday night to Big 12 cellar dweller Houston is just the latest example. Lately, the Horned Frogs keep finding ways to lose.

Here’s a selection of their recent misfortunes:

• On September 14, TCU coughed up a three-touchdown lead in the second half and a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter to lose 35–34 at home to UCF.
• A week later, crosstown rival SMU — where TCU has played since 1915 but is choosing not to after its current series contract expires in 2025 — dropped 66 points on the Horned Frogs, beating them by 24. Dykes was ejected after he had received two unsportsmanlike conduct fines. for swearing at the officials.
• On Friday, the Cougars traveled to Fort Worth after not scoring since Sept. 14 and having the nation’s least productive offense in points per game, scoring percentage and points per drive, according to TruMedia. The Cougars roared to 24 points in the first half and an 18-point lead at halftime.

“That was a total…” Dykes said Friday, rubbing his nose, shaking his head and exhaling long, “a disaster of a football game.”

Since being humbled 65-7 by Georgia in the 2022 title game, the Horned Frogs are 8-10: 5-7 last year and 3-3 so far this season. Those eight wins came against six Football Bowl Subdivision teams with a combined record of 26-33 and two FCS squads. Only one of TCU’s wins in 2023 was against a team that finished with a winning record (SMU), and none of the FBS wins this year are over teams currently above .500.

Any honeymoon period Dykes enjoyed after his magical freshman season is completely over as far as TCU fans are concerned. Defeating the Horned Frogs in the last 18 games has meant that Dykes has ended almost any positive sentiment from 2022.

TCU’s trends are concerning. Since the start of the 2023 season, the Horned Frogs have a minus-17 turnover margin, which ranks 130th out of 134 FBS teams in that span. Only Louisiana Tech, Rice and Temple are worse.

The Frogs are averaging 57.3 penalties per game in their last 18 games, which ranks 59th out of 70 teams in the Power 4.

The biggest disappointment, a shocker for those who have followed TCU’s rise through three conferences to college football’s adult table over the past 25 years, is how inconsistent the Horned Frogs are defensively.

• Since the start of 2023, TCU has allowed 32.1 points per game to FBS opponents, which rank 111th nationally.
• The 43.1 percent third-down conversion rate TCU allowed to FBS opponents in that span is 112th.
• The 407.8 yards per game the defense has allowed to FBS foes since the start of 2023 ranks 92nd nationally.
• According to Pro Football Focus, the Horned Frogs have pressured opposing quarterbacks 27.9 percent of the time in the last 16 games against the 110th-ranked FBS league.

Under former coach Gary Patterson, the Horned Frogs built their identity on elite defense. Dykes fired his original defensive coordinator Joe Gillespie and hired former Boise State coach Andy Avalos last season. Now it’s unclear what type of performance that device will provide in any given week.

Friday night against the Cougars, TCU committed four turnovers, contributing to 10 Houston points. But the Horned Frogs racked up 208 rushing yards and struggled to corral Houston quarterback Zeon Chriss, making his first start for the Cougars. In the losses to UCF and SMU, the Horned Frogs gave up 289 and 238 rushing yards, respectively.

Offensively, TCU has failed to get its run game going consistently, which was a key part of its 2022 success. The Horned Frogs rushed for just 66 yards Friday night, 65 against SMU and 58 against UCF, despite the history of coordinator Kendal Briles of productive rushing attacks.

In addition to the shortcomings on the field, fans have become frustrated with the lack of answers to the problems. After the SMU debacle two weeks ago, Dykes told reporters he was “surprised” with what happened because his team practiced well leading up to the game. On Friday he said: “I don’t know exactly why.” TCU has played the way it has been playing, once again expressing frustration with his team’s inability to play under the lights the way it has in practice.

After Friday’s loss, Dykes said he thought the Cougars were the “more excited” team of the two.

“They played harder than us, especially in the first half,” Dykes told reporters. “They were better prepared than us and they kicked us in the tail.”

Give credit to new Houston coach Willie Fritz and his team. The Cougars were energetic, played fast and looked the better of the two teams despite coming into the game last in the Big 12 standings.

“Some of the things that happened tonight are just inexcusable,” Dykes said. “It falls on me. Obviously I did a poor job of getting our guys ready to play.”

Dykes must put up with the emerging narrative that his greatest TCU success came from players largely recruited by his predecessor, Patterson. Some may even wish for the good old days of GP, conveniently forgetting how mediocre the team had become before the program legend was ushered in: TCU went 21-22 overall and 13-19 in Big 12 play in Patterson’s final three years in the season. attack.

It’s true that Dykes succeeded with a core — including quarterback Max Duggan, running back Kendre Miller, receiver Quentin Johnston, linebacker Dee Winters, cornerback Tre’Vius Hodges-Tomlinson and many others — brought in largely by Patterson. But Patterson got mediocre results with that selection, and that’s why he found himself out of a job.

Dykes, who revitalized SMU before taking the TCU job, pushed all the right buttons in his first season in Fort Worth. The fresh voice and new direction unlocked the program’s potential and showed how far the Horned Frogs could go.

But since then, the wrong buttons have been pushed too many times. Despite the solid talent on the roster, results are lagging behind. Something is broken at TCU.

“I’m at a loss for words,” Dykes said Friday evening. “I don’t really have an answer as to why we played like that.”

Can Dykes solve this? It is shocking that the question has to be asked less than two years after one of the best seasons in program history.

TCU is off next week before traveling to Utah on Oct. 19. The Horned Frogs still have some time to lick their wounds, but righting this ship doesn’t seem like an easy solution based on their recent trajectory.

“I’m disappointed for our fans,” Dykes said. “They deserve better than this. We have two weeks to figure this out.”

(Photo: Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)