Head Coach: Sonny Dykes is entering his 4th season as the head coach of the Horned Frogs with a 27-13 record. He got off to the wildest start with his program, an incredible 13-2 season that ended with an appearance in the National Championship, and then they plummeted to 5-7 the next year when basically everything that went right the year before flipped. Entering last season there was no telling what a “normal” Dykes TCU team even looked like, it felt like last season we found that out with a 9-4 record. The question is, can they find their way to another excellent season?
Program Outlook: This is all still very new for TCU, it may be 4 years into the Dykes era now but this was a program that was coached by Gary Patterson for a long time. It felt like we saw the rise in 2022 with a new voice leading the way and then came the belated adjustment when a senior laden group graduated. Now we’re finding out what the Horned Frogs future really looks like, but they want to keep building. TCU is a program that certainly has the resources and modern era results to become the Big 12s top program, can they capitalize?
How does the 2025 Roster look?: TCU ranks 55th in the country returning 58% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. Key players for the Frogs starts with QB Josh Hoover who is one of the top QBs in the country, he’s going to be a stat machine again. Hoover needs to cut down on turnovers to take another step. He has some great receivers around him in Eric McAlister plus transfers Jordan Dwyer (Idaho) and Joseph Manjack (USC). The offensive line did a great job in pass protection and gains more than it loses with guard Cade Bennett, the top player on the line essentially counting as an addition because he missed all of last year due to injury, Coltin Deery moves inside to Center so he will be a critical part for the offense. The defense starts with Safety Bud Clark, he was one of their top playmakers on the special 2022 team and yes he’s still around, but Jamel Johnson is a great running mate in the backfield. The Frogs have a good pair of linebackers in Namdi Obiazor and Kaleb Elarms-Orr. Edge rusher Devean Deal is a menace, but the Frogs hit the portal to find others in the rotation to help him. Mentioning portal additions corner Elijah Jackson was a huge addition out of Washington. Question marks for TCU starts with the run game on offense, they mostly struggled with this element last year and with the passing weapons they have they don’t need a lot but they just need some pop on the ground to take some pressure off the pass game. Consistency on defense will be another question mark.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: TCU has a very challenging schedule. The Non-conference is especially difficult as it kicks off with TCU once again being on the other end of an extremely high profile debut, this time Bill Belichick’s North Carolina team and TCU also had to play DFW rival SMU in the last edition of the Battle for the Iron Skillet for the foreseeable future, it’s really sad to see this game no longer as an annual game. TCU also gets Abilene Christian as their FCS foe, ACU made the playoffs last year but they lost a few key pieces from that team. TCU didn’t get many breaks in their Big 12 schedule, it opens immediately with a road game at last year’s conference champ and TCU also has to face BYU on the road. They face most of the top contenders along with facing Houston and West Virginia in tough road games. Their rivalry(?) game against Cincinnati is probably the only clear win on the Big 12 schedule. The schedule overall will make it really difficult for TCU to improve on last year’s record, even if they are a better team.
Final Thoughts: TCU is a team to keep your eyes on this year, most likely not for playoff purposes but because they will be entertaining to watch each week. They can pass against anyone and they play in so many big games both in and out of the conference. They may see a slight regression or match last year’s 9-4 record but I suspect they’ll be a solid team overall that will get in someone’s way.
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