TCU Athletics
First-year TCU football coach Sonny Dykes has had the best of football seasons, and, perhaps, the worst of football seasons.
Follow me.
Yes, the Horned Frogs are 12-1, No. 3 in the College Football Playoff, and with a national semifinal game scheduled against Michigan in the Fiesta Bowl as his plans for New Year’s Eve.
Doesn’t get much better than that, right?
Now the worst part of it: He’s now expected to do this every year.
I jest, something merely said for amusement. (I think.)
Well, as a result of TCU’s emergence in 2022, the school has awarded the coach a contract extension, adding a year to his original deal signed a year ago. His contract now runs through 2028.
Pete Thamel was the first to report this. The Star-Telegram reported that sources at the university confirmed the original reporting. So, it must be true.
Thamel added that Dykes’ pay will be boosted to the top levels of his peers in the Big 12. Mike Gundy is the highest-paid coach in the conference, earning $7.5 million a year. TCU and Baylor, both private universities, aren’t public knowledge.
Dykes is a finalist for the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award. He might be a shoo-in after leading a team picked seventh in the Big 12 in the preseason coaches’ poll to an unbeaten regular season and inclusion among the very best college football teams in the country. Last week, Dykes was selected Big 12 Coach of the Year. TCU players were predominant on the Big 12's all-conference team, a total of 10 named to it.
On Tuesday, TCU offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Garrett Riley was announced as the winner of the Broyles Award, which recognizes the nation's top assistant coach.
Even bigger things could be on tap. Quarterback Max Duggan, the Big 12's Offensive Player of the Year who was selected the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award winner (he's headed to Baltimore this morning for that), is a finalist for college football's most prestigious award, the Heisman Trophy. The winner will be announced on Saturday in New York.
And if all of that wasn't good enough, TCU’s football program is vying for its first national championship since 1938.