2024 TCU Football Preview: Quarterbacks

Redshirt sophomore Josh Hoover returns as the presumptive starter for the upcoming season.

TCU football is roughly one month away from kicking off the 2024 season. The Horned Frogs, who are entering their third campaign under head coach Sonny Dykes, will travel to face Stanford in a Big 12-ACC clash on Friday, Aug. 30. In the first installment of our season preview series, we’ll examine the quarterbacks who are back in the fold and who TCU fans could expect to step up from under center when the Horned Frogs take the field this fall.

TCU saw movement in the transfer portal after the 2023 season. The Horned Frogs, who went 5-7 and failed to qualify for a bowl game last fall, watched former starting quarterback Chandler Morris transfer to North Texas after three years with the program. Morris threw for 1,532 yards and 12 touchdowns with five interceptions in seven games last year. Morris, who won the starting job over each of the last two seasons, suffered a knee injury during TCU’s loss against Iowa State after injuring that same knee against Colorado in 2022.

The injury to Morris two years ago paved the way for Max Duggan to take the reigns and compile the best season of his collegiate career, earning All-Big 12 honors and finishing second in the Heisman Trophy running while leading TCU to the national championship. Without Duggan to call on in 2023, TCU turned to redshirt freshman Josh Hoover, who had only seen limited game reps before finishing last season as the starting quarterback. Hoover showed flashes in the six games he started, throwing for 2,206 yards and 15 touchdowns with nine interceptions while completing 62 percent of his passes.

Now a redshirt sophomore in his third year with the program, Hoover is the presumptive starter for the 2024 season. The former three-star recruit from Rockwall, Texas was unable to participate in spring camp due to an injury, but he’s received clearance this summer and should be in line for the lion’s share of first-team reps this fall. Hoover, who was an Honorable Mention for the Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year in 2023, enjoyed a breakout performance against BYU, throwing for 439 yards and four touchdowns to earn Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week honors. Hoover also turned in a strong outing against Baylor, throwing for 412 yards and two touchdowns in a 42-17 victory over the Bears.

While Hoover will likely be the starting quarterback when TCU takes the field this fall, depth at the quarterback positions remains as much of a concern as it did last season, when the Horned Frogs lost former Oregon State transfer Chance Nolan before the season even started. With Morris as well as veteran signal caller Grant Tisdale departing the program after the 2023 season, TCU added a quarterback through the transfer portal, signing former Vanderbilt starter Ken Seals. Seals, a fifth-year player from Azle, Texas, started 22 games for the Commodores and threw for 4,292 yards and 28 touchdowns in his career at Vanderbilt.

Seals was one of two quarterbacks who took a large number of reps during the spring with Hoover out. The other was four-star true freshman Hauss Hejny from Aledo, Texas. Hejny, who signed and enrolled early, led Aledo to two straight state titles in 2022 and 2023 and is viewed by some as the future for the Horned Frogs at the quarterback position. Although TCU lost four-star 2025 quarterback Ty Hawkins, who flipped his commitment to SMU earlier this month, the Horned Frogs managed to secure a flip of their own, landing former Oklahoma State commit and four-star recruit Adam Schobel, a TCU legacy.

Seals, who holds Vanderbilt’s all-time record in completion percentage at 60.5 percent, has the starting experience necessary to step in should Hoover suffer an injury this fall. Meanwhile, TCU will look to grow and develop its true freshman quarterback Hejny, who should at least be the third-string quarterback with a chance to push Seals for the No. 2 job when fall camp starts in August. As it did last season, however, TCU’s success will largely hinge on the health of its starting quarterback Hoover, who will look to improve on a short-but-promising stretch of starts in 2023.