FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — TCU coach Sonny Dykes says the boos and calls for him to be fired are the kinds of things happening everywhere in college football, though he insisted Tuesday that he didn't notice
all of that going on during the last home game for the Horned Frogs.
There were “Fire Sonny!” chants and some people in the stands even wore bags over their heads on Saturday, a Halloween game the Horned Frogs won 22-16 over Kansas after quarterback Jaden Craig's 17-yard touchdown run with 1:09 left.
“I didn’t notice any of it. I had a job to do and I was trying to do my job the best that I could. I honestly didn’t know about it, didn’t see it,” Dykes said during his weekly media availability Tuesday. “I think that’s part of our job as coaches, is to understand the way things are now. It’s very different, it is a different world.”
The stadium was far from full at kickoff. Many fans and most students who did show up then left after the Frogs were held scoreless in the first half for the first time in eight years, and weren't even there for the winning score.
TCU (4-4, 2-3 Big 12), which plays at No. 24 Arizona (6-2, 3-2) on Friday night, has lost four one-score games by a combined 24 points to Power Four opponents. That comes while the Frogs have the Big 12's top defense, allowing only 14.1 points and 287.6 total yards per game.
Their win over Kansas marked the most points they have scored against a P4 team this season. They won 17-6 over Baylor, which has since fired coach Dave Aranda.
Dykes, who is 40-21 at TCU, spoke a day after Nebraska coach Matt Rhule urged everyone in and around his program to stay calm. The Cornhuskers' fan base is growing impatient after three consecutive losses when leading deep into the fourth quarter.
“We’ve had some of that ourselves here. ... That’s just part of it, and it’s the bad part of it,” Dykes said while also referencing Rhule's comments without any specific comparisons. "But I don’t concern myself with that. I don’t have any control over it. I didn’t hear it, didn’t see it, didn’t know anything about it. And so it’s certainly not going to have any impact on me or how hard I work or what I try to do to prepare our team to win.”
Just four years ago, in Dykes' first season with the Frogs, they tied a school record with 13 wins and made the championship game in what then was still a four-team College Football Playoff. TCU’s 51-45 win over Michigan in the semifinal at the Fiesta Bowl is still the Big 12’s only CFP victory, but was followed by a 65-7 loss to Georgia in the national title game.
TCU slipped to 5-7 in 2023 before consecutive 9-4 seasons capped by bowl victories, though early losses each time kept them from contending for a Big 12 title or having any chance to make another playoff appearance.
“We’re supposed to win every game. And that’s our challenge and that’s our expectations, is to go out there and find a way to win every single game,” Dykes said. "We’ve won four, we’ve lost four this year, which is not good enough, and I get it. But we’ve had a lot of success around here, and we’ve won a lot of football games.”
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