What’s the Craig?
TCU brought in a new quarterback for the 2026 season, seeking a calm presence behind center, someone big on brains, big on experience, and a steady force to lead the offense under new OC Gordon Sammis. The Horned Frogs found its perfect fit to this wish list with 5th-year former Harvard QB Jaden Craig. He had been touted as a potential NFL Draft target, but chose to join Sonny Dykes and TCU for a final collegiate season, garnering
nothing but high praise for his potential and the new look he brought to the Horned Frogs.
Then the game kicked off in Dublin’s Aviva Stadium where he would see Bill Belichick’s defense on the other side of the field. And it became clear that Craig was not ready for primetime at the top level of college football.
Craig would finish the game with a stat line of 20-32 for 175 yards, sacked three times, negative 22 yards rushing, and a fumble lost. But even that paltry box score presence does not tell the story of Craig’s performance. He played scared, perhaps thanks to the albatross that Dykes tossed on his shoulders by comparing his lack of interceptions to previous TCU QB Josh Hoover. Craig was double-pumping every pass, causing clear passing lanes to close quickly. When he did make the decision to pass, he was throwing well high or well behind open receivers, even when the offense was drawing up easy dump offs on screens or crossers. He looked best when rolling out of the pocket, but refused to run when the clear lane was there. All these woes came to clear view on the critical 4th & 2 with 4 minutes to play in the 4th quarter: a gotta-have-it play that had Craig on a roll out again, he had his TE open right at the break, had a wide open running lane that would have kept the drive – and game – alive, and chose to throw across his body into the endzone. WR Jeremy Scott did have an opening on the play and an on-target strike could’ve been a score, but the pass was high, late, and behind the WR with no chance of being completed.
If you want to make excuses about the travel or the weather or that TCU was without expected starting receivers Jordan Dwyer and Dozie Ezukanma, fine. And there are surely better days ahead with a bye week and two get-right home games vs. Grambling and Arkansas State before the Big 12 opener at UCF. Craig had moments of okayness, working through progressions to find a target or hitting a big TE wide open on a seam, but he’ll have to be several levels better if the Horned Frogs want to salvage anything from this season.
Identity: Mistakes
Some new faces in new places, but TCU’s performance in Ireland was more of the same slop that Horned Frog fans have experienced the last few years. TCU committed 11 penalties for 100 total penalty yards, with four straight 2nd half drives stalling due to big plays being erased by penalties and getting pushed behind the sticks. Yes, 15 of those yards are due to an absurd unsportsmanlike penalty on Jeremy Payne for signaling a first down. However the game ended on a TCU penalty as Markis Deal was drawn offsides on the decisive 4th down in the final minute, gifting the Tar Heels a free first down and the win.
It wasn’t just mental mistakes on penalties. It was the Horned Frogs going was 1-5 on 4th down today, including two utter failures in the red zone. It was your supposed NFL-bound OT getting roasted by an edge rusher for an easy blindside sack and fumble. It was firing a snap a mile over your punter’s head resulting in a safety and what would become the game-winning points. It was getting shut out for three quarters. It was allowing the first half clock to run out with two timeouts in your pocket instead of attempting to complete a drive and push for points before the break.
Undisciplined and unprepared; outcoached and outclassed. Which brings us to…
Sonny on the Hot Seat
The Horned Frogs’ unforced errors aren’t just contained to the on-field play or the coaching staff, the TCU administrative offices have been on a run of questionable choices as well. Firstly, the fact that today’s game even happened like this is a display of disregard to TCU season ticket holders, as TCU conceded a home game in Amon G. Carter Stadium against North Carolina to send the program a world away – reminiscent of eliminating a home-and-home with Ohio State for a one-off in Arlington at the Cowboys stadium. Just as the league sold out its prime real estate to Monster Energy, TCU sold its fans to ESPN, with the result being their 2026 college football season is over for TCU before any other teams had played. Call it the Curse of the Irish if you want, but every year the teams that make this journey end up with disastrous seasons and completely fall apart at the seams
Then this offseason TCU decided to give Sonny Dykes a contract extensiondespite being uncompetitive in the Big 12 for three straight seasons. They will point to two consecutive 9-win seasons, which include two bowl wins, but TCU has a Big 12 of 14-13 in the Big 12 and a finish in the league standings no better than 5th. There were no other programs knocking down Dykes’ door to pull him away from TCU, giving little reason for the university to grant him the extra cash and extra security of a new deal. Dykes promptly repaid TCU for its gesture of goodwill by once again crapping the bed on the national stage. The extension no doubt makes it more difficult for the university to move on from Dykes if the season continues in the trajectory seen in Dublin. Expectations should remain low until Dykes and his program can prove otherwise.
While the team showed little fight on the field, it was the locker room fight that that has generated headlines for the program over the last month. Regardless of the causes that led to the situation, the staff lost the locker room to such an extent that it allowed emotions to boil over to the point of such violence, resulting in key players on the team being unavailable for this game and beyond. TCU doubled-down on the situation, making an ugly mess even messier by lashing out at the local media, starting a pissing match between the local university and the news organization of record in the city. The week of the season opener in Ireland, the TCU athletic department revoked the credentials of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram – the newspaper founded and published by Amon G. Carter, the namesake of TCU’s football stadium. Yes, there’s been ample debate about the details of the story, but the situation was undoubtedly newsworthy and was reported on as news; there had to be a better way for TCU to handle the situation. In any case, this became a major distractions from the festivities in Ireland and whatever excitement there may have been going into today’s game. Just another instance of Dykes and TCU burning the stockpile of goodwill it earned with the dream 2022 campaign. One can imagine the patience is beginning to run thin.
House of Payne / Small World
Let’s find a sliver of positivity out of the no good very bad day in Dublin. In fact let’s find two slivers. First, Jeremy Payne was every bit the star runner we expected going into the season and in this new offense. Payne finished with 25 carries for 142 yards (5.7 ypc) also catching all 5 of his targets for 27 receiving yards. Belichick had his defense sell out to stop Payne in the 2nd half and it worked enough as the TCU offense got shut down and shut out down the stretch. Payne was the one that gave the Frogs a spark and what kept putting the offense in position to succeed. Even his notable failure of the game – getting stuffed for a loss on 4th and short in the red zone – was not really at his doing, the TCU offensive line got driven deep into the backfield immediately as the UNC sold out for the obvious inside run and TCU fell right into the trap.
Aside from Payne, it was Ed Small’s world giving anything positive for the offense. With injuries decimating the wide receiver depth chart, Small stepped up as the trusted target for Craig. With 9 receptions for 65 yards, Small was generating space on his routes and creating first downs for the Horned Frogs. Craig only completed two total passes to wide receivers other than Small. While it’s clear the WR depth is not as strong as perhaps perceived, Small is the real deal and will continue to be the driving force of the passing game, even when Dwyer & Ezukanma return to action, hopefully soon.
