TCU Athletics
TCU’s dream season is getting another drop off of bling.
On the heels of leading his team to the College Football Playoff and a 12-1 record in his first season, Sonny Dykes on Monday was (editorial follows: deservedly) named The Associated Press Coach of the Year. On Tuesday, he was selected the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award, as voted on by the Football Writers Association of America.
Dykes received 37 of 46 first-place votes and 120 points from AP Top 25 voters to become the second TCU coach to win the AP award. Gary Patterson twice won the award, in 2009 and 2014. Willie Fritz of Tulane, long ago one of the few teams TCU could beat in the Horned Frogs' dark ages, was a distant second.
Dykes told the AP: “It’s the ultimate team award. It’s indicative of literally everybody in our office, coaches, players, everybody, because more so than ever in college football it is truly a team effort.”
Dykes has been honored with six coach of the year awards this year.
In addition to drinking virgin egg nog, presumably, Dykes and his staff are getting TCU (12-1) ready to face No. 2 Michigan (13-0) on New Year’s Eve in the Fiesta Bowl for a berth in the national championship game. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh finished fourth.
The award for Dykes is unique, too. No coach had ever won his first coach of the year on his fourth stop as a Bowl Subdivision head coach.
Dykes, 53, had stints with Louisiana Tech, California, and SMU. The West Texan and son of longtime Texas Tech coach Spike Dykes, Sonny Dykes is 83-64 in 13 seasons as a head coach.
“It’s not always like this and I’ve been on both ends and so something like this probably means more to me than it might somebody,” Dykes said. “I’ve been 1-11 and I’ve been fired. I’ve been kind of on top and then on bottom, too. I’m always thankful for those bad times because it really truly does make you appreciate the good times more.”
Dykes’ move from SMU last season was followed by a lot of cussing over there and lots of looking forward to beating the Horned Frogs in the two schools’ annual meeting. That turned out to be hopes unfulfilled; TCU beat SMU in Dallas in September.
TCU began the season unranked and forecast to finished seventh in the Big 12 preseason poll, proving once again that there is only one Nostradamus, the reputed seer who almost certainly would have gotten this wrong, too.
“We really had no expectations whatsoever when the year started,” Dykes said to the AP. “We thought we had a chance to be pretty good, but we just gained confidence every week and we had some kids that really were tough and like to compete, and that made everything so much better.”
Dykes will receive a bust of the iconic Eddie Robinson, who coached 55 years at Grambling.
AP Coach of the Year voting (1st place votes, 2nd, 3rd, total points):
Sonny Dykes, TCU 37 4 1 – 120
Willie Fritz, Tulane 2 12 10 – 40
Josh Heupel, Tennessee 1 13 9 – 38
Jim Harbaugh, Michigan 5 5 3 – 28
Kirby Smart, Georgia 1 4 4 – 15
Lincoln Riley, USC 0 4 5 – 13
Kalen DeBoer, Washington 0 1 4 – 6
Lance Leipold, Kansas 0 2 1 – 5
Mike Elko, Duke 0 1 1 – 3
Jim Mora, UConn 0 0 3 – 3
Jonathan Smith, Oregon St. 0 0 2 – 2
Shane Beamer 0 0 1 – 1
Chris Klieman, Kansas St. 0 0 1 – 1
Bret Bielema, Illinois 0 0 1 – 1