Spring football roundups: Can TCU do it again?
Will the Horned Frogs endure a boom/bust cycle or can Sonny Dykes' program maintain their new pace?
It was pretty shocking when TCU managed to immediately translate Gary Patterson’s left behind talent and Sonny Dykes’ program and portal management into a National Championship runner-up season in 2023. Truly remarkable.
Still, the fact is TCU has had more NFL athletes than most other Big 12 teams for several years now. Patterson had a reputation for maximizing with overlooked gems, which is definitely something that happened in Fort Worth, but in reality the Frogs were basically in a unique, second tier within the league in terms of talent acquisition.
The recruiting hierarchy went:
Tier 1: Texas and Oklahoma
Tier 2: TCU
Tier 3: Nearly everyone else.
Tier 4: Kansas
TCU and Baylor are pretty unique within the college football sphere for having relatively small fanbases and alumni bases yet loads of cash due to their boosters being predominantly wealthy Texans. Combine that with their positions on the I-35 corridor, perhaps the fastest growing economic and demographic region in the country and a football-crazed region, and you have a chance to recruit pretty well. Baylor doesn’t translate it at the same rate as TCU though, perhaps due to being a bit more isolated down in Waco.
Add to that the transfer portal and Dykes and his staff having an eye for both scouting potential transfer talent AND selling DFW-area blue chips on coming home via the transfer portal and you have some serious potential in the program.
So could they reload in 2023? Make another big run?
Roster building in the Fort
So TCU has some advantages in recruiting. They’re the only Power 5 program in the Metroplex and Sonny Dykes knows their station and advantages well because his previous stop was at SMU, the only halfway serious college football program within Dallas proper.
Additionally, Baylor’s recruiting is starting to slip. New head coach Dave Aranda has a new philosophy and he lost key Matt Rhule holdover Joey McGuire and some other recruiting staff to Texas Tech. Rhule’s recruiting numbers were actually not great in the rankings but there was some overlap in targets. Rhule liked fast, true athletes he could mold into star players which was similar to TCU’s methodology.
Aranda really doesn’t do that either, he snatches up high school players who have proven skill and knowhow.
In that environment, here’s how On3 ranked the Big 12’s last few classes:
There’s a lot to clean from just these numbers but one of them is that TCU is the only school to hit the 88.00 mark on average recruits aside from Texas and OU (who generally aim for 90.00).
It’s possible Texas Tech will join them in tier 2 and Baylor will remain in tier 3, that’s a debate for another time. The point is, TCU can recruit athletes and it’s reflected in the NFL Draft. Check out their results over the last half-decade:
2022 Draft: Zero players
2021 Draft: One player
2020 Draft: Five players
2019 Draft: Three players
2018 Draft: Three players
As you can see, as they slipped after their strong 2017 season (Big 12 title runner-ups) their representation in the draft also started to drop. The Frogs sent nine players to the combine this year and will see at least 4-5 drafted.
Of those nine, only one was a transfer identified and brought in by Dykes. The others were either blue chips or athletes with upside identified and mostly developed by the prior staff.
The transfer portal is a big piece of the pie for Dykes though. In 2022 the Frogs brought in 13 transfers and from those ranks found starters like…
Will linebacker Johny Hodges
Cornerback Josh Newton
Safety Mark Perry
Tight end Jared Wiley
Center Alan Ali
and depth pieces such as…
Defensive end Caleb Fox
Defensive tackle Tymon Mitchell
The Frogs went to the playoffs for two main reasons. They finally added great offensive coaching to a talented and experienced offensive lineup and they used the transfer portal to achieve a transformation on the roster to move to a 3-3-5 Flyover scheme from Gary Patterson’s unique, 4-2-5 Quarters system.
TCU’s needs in year two
The departures from the TCU 2022 national runner-up squad would definitely suggest a collapse in 2023.
On defense they lose ace cornerback Tre’Vius Hodges-Tomlinson and two key pass-rushers Dee Winters and Dylan Horton.
On offense they wave goodbye to quarterback Max Duggan, center Alan Ali, deep threat Quentin Johnston, running back Kendre Miller, and slot weapons Derius Davis and Taye Barber.
Confounding these losses is the pivotal role each guy had on the team.
Obviously Duggan, the Heisman finalist, was an important piece of the machine. Johnston, Davis, and Barber were 1-2-3 in receiving production and Kendre Miller ran for 1,399 yards and 17 scores and his main back-up Emari Demercado (681 yards, six touchdowns) is also leaving.
Dee Winters and Dylan Horton had 14.5 and 15 tackles for loss respectively with everyone else below 10 (Hodges did have 9.5) but more importantly had 7.5 and 10.5 sacks apiece. Their 18 sacks contrast strongly with the 12 sacks by the rest of the roster.
Overall we’re talking about the departure of elite athletes at play-making positions. How do you reload with more NFL-caliber pieces in order to maintain the level of play TCU enjoyed in 2022? Has to be mostly recruiting, but there’s always the transfer portal for the most powerful necromancers.
Here’s what Dykes summoned:
East Carolina Edge Rick D’Abreu (2.5 sacks in 2022)
Florida cornerback Avery Helm (two years as a back-up)
Alabama offensive tackle Tommy Brockermeyer (two appearances)
OSU slot John Paul Richardson (49 catches for 503 yards and four TDs in 2022)
LSU receiver Jack Bech (16 catches for 200 yards and one TD in 2022)
Ole Miss slot Jaylon Robinson (five catches for 29 yards in 2022)
Alabama slot JoJo Earle (12 catches for 155 yards and two TDs in 2022)
Alabama running back Trey Sanders (14 carries for 80 yards and one TD in 2022)
Most of these guys fall under the category of “blue chip recruit coming home after an unsuccessful adventure abroad.” Exceptions are JPR of OSU, a Houstonian who was part of the wave of departures from Stillwater, and D’Abreu who appears to be offering his final year of eligibility for depth to the Frog cause. D’Abreu wasn’t even a starter at East Carolina and is not replacing Horton if TCU is going to come close to matching last season.
Everyone else is a “this wasn’t working out” addition. Dykes had some success with those types at SMU but it was a different context, bringing in talented blue chips who hadn’t panned out at a higher level to come out-athlete the AAC. That’ll be harder in the Big 12.
The guys who came in through the portal to propel TCU, even including Horton who transferred in under Patterson, were all well-evaluated guys who had proven it at a lower level of play.
Here’s how these guys basically profile:
JoJo Earle is an explosive athlete who was struggling with more finely-tuned skills and assignments at Alabama. Will he come alive in a simpler spread? Jaylon Robinson is at his fourth school, he initially found success at UCF back in 2020 and was promptly injured and couldn’t find the field there or at Ole Miss afterwards. Jack Bech was a solid receiver at LSU but wasn’t a big part of the plan.
Trey Sanders and Tommy Brockermeyer had injuries early in their careers and were buried on the depth chart while trying to rebuild their careers. Avery Helm was playing pretty solid football at Florida and just couldn’t crack the top of the depth chart.
Meanwhile here’s what TCU has coming up the pipeline in recruiting (or previous portal summonings) at these positions.
Edge: A pair of redshirt freshmen in Michael Ibukun-Okeyode (89.92 from DFW) and Paul Ayewale (85.33 from HOU).
Sam LB: Namdi Obiazor, a big Iowa JUCO addition who played nickel last year and is now sliding down to linebacker.
Deep threat: Jordan Hudson was a 94.67-rated stud from DFW the Frogs successfully signed in 2022. He was just a bit player in 2022 but is due for a promotion. They also have big Savion Williams but he hasn’t really shown the ability to take the top off a defense.
Slot: The Frogs brought in four guys via the portal who could play slot, one or two will end up outside. Earle and Robinson are burners who may get sent deep on verticals, Bech and JPR are fairly true to their stereotypes (both are caucasian) as sure-handed possession receivers rather than burners. It’s unlikely the recruited receivers on the roster have an impact here in 2023.
Quarterback: This is the big one. There’s three big factors at play here we’ll get to in the next section.
Overall I’d say the Frogs took a nice, bold stab at simply reloading for 2023 but their long-term position looks stronger than the short-term due to the severe losses and the risky replacements.
Rushing the passer in particular will likely be a dicey proposition and the offense is much less explosive than before.
Quarterback and offensive identity
Here are three big factors at play for TCU which are likely to shape their season, all revolving around quarterback and style of play on offense.
Factor 1: Chandler Morris is the heir apparent at quarterback
Factor 2: Kendal Briles has been hired as offensive coordinator.
Factor 3: There’s a chance of adding another portal quarterback when the next window opens on April 15.
Now Briles is from the Veer and Shoot tree, but Dykes is in charge at the top of this program and he’s a true Air Raid guy who’s evolved to feature more and better run game components to complement his passing game acumen.
Consider also this development:
Presumably a Kendal Briles offense would not be described in this fashion as he’s never run a true Air Raid passing game. He’s a hardcore Veer and Shoot guy, so why hire him only to lean into the Air Raid? Well because Dykes can oversee the Air Raid just fine regardless of OC and he likes to hire a coordinator to shore up his run game understanding.
Why run the Air Raid in 2023 is the real question and I think the personnel above provides the answer. When some of your top receivers are at their best as route runners underneath and not flying down the field, it behooves you to set them up to do so in the passing game and not try to run by people on play-action.
Furthermore, Chandler Morris is a classic Air Raid spread quarterback of the likes of the original wave of 2000s quarterbacks in the Big 12 you can read about in my book. He’s not going to fire lasers down the field but he can run around and find sure-handed receivers running open at the chains all day. He can also zip the ball around underneath on RPOs, where Briles will bring a greater emphasis.
Then there’s the other thing.
TCU was in play for several transfer quarterbacks in the last window and came up short. Amazingly, the big “winner” was Ole Miss who came into spring football with the following characters:
Jaxson Dart: Returning starter and junior. 362 passes for 2,974 yards at 8.2 ypa, 20 TDs to 11 INT, 128 carries 614 rushing yards at 4.8 ypc with one TD in 2022.
Spencer Sanders: 4-year starter at OSU and COVID senior. 368 passes for 2,642 yards at 7.2 ypa, 17 TD to 9 INT, 107 carries for 391 yards at 3.7 ypc with eight rushing TDs in 2022.
Walker Howard: Redshirt freshman transfer from LSU who was rated 96.30 out of a Louisiana high school.
My read of the situation was Lane Kiffin wanted to upgrade at quarterback and brought in a hotshot talent to develop (Howard) and a veteran (Sanders) to hold the reins. If Dart doesn’t feel good about his position he could transfer out in the new window and head over to TCU. If he did though, he’d be an even better fit for a more Briles-ish approach after running a Veer and Shoot-adjacent RPO spread offense at Ole Miss.
But Kiffin is a master at portal necromancy himself and Sanders is rehabbing a shoulder injury so he’s been limited and unable to fully scare off Dart just yet. Additionally, if Dart feels after spring that he could hold onto the job in the fall, well that might be appealing. If he can’t, he could use a redshirt year in 2023 and pick his spot while letting everyone in the country recruit him in the first portal window of the following offseason.
So it may be TCU has to make the best of it with Morris and try to help the young local learn to stay healthy for a full season. Still, keep an eye out here. They clearly don’t love the idea of going into the season with just diminutive Morris (5-11, 185) and redshirt freshman Josh Hoover.
Long-term the Frogs are well positioned to stand out in the Big 12, perhaps as a new tier 1 in recruiting. Short-term, while I doubt they collapse I don’t see the athleticism or veteran leadership to make it back to the playoffs. The rule of thumb in the Big 12 is that teams who lose a wave of elite athletes at key spots after a great season (Baylor in 2022) tend to go bust unless they’re Oklahoma. Can tier 2 TCU pull off the same trick?
Maybe eventually.
Sonny has a real opportunity to prove himself this coming season! Gets Texas at home, but Kstate, Tech, and OU on the road! Pretty good challenge!