Frog Mailbag: Has TCU reached a new low after its loss at SMU?

We take Facebook questions and poll our Twitter followers after the Horned Frogs lost the Iron Skillet on Saturday.

The TCU football fan base appears to be growing restless after the Horned Frogs suffered an embarrassing 66-42 loss against SMU in the Battle for the Iron Skillet on Saturday evening. After blowing a 21-point lead to the UCF Knights last week, TCU has lost consecutive games while surrendering 527 rushing yards over those two games. With the Horned Frogs set to pick conference play back up with a neutral-site matchup against Kansas on Saturday, do TCU fans have faith that head coach Sonny Dykes and the program can turn things around? We took questions from Facebook and polled our Twitter base for this week’s Frog Mailbag.

I don’t think former defensive coordinator Joe Gillespie’s scheme would do much better against the run right now. Both Gillespie and Avalos feature plenty of 3-3-5, but the main difference is that Avalos features an EDGE rusher, whereas Gillespie had three linebackers and relied more on blitzes from linebackers and defensive backs to create pressure. There are two glaring issues with TCU’s run defense right now. The first issue is that the team’s defensive line is not winning at the line of scrimmage or generating any significant push. I think that’s less of an X’s and O’s issue and more of a Jim’s and Joe’s issue. Secondly, Avalos has not adjusted to teams running the football. Too many times over the last two weeks have I seen TCU line up with five or six players in the box when the opponent has six or seven down on the line of scrimmage. Most of those runs have come in short-yardage spots where the Horned Frogs give up an easy first down due to being outmatched up front.

Don’t expect any coaching changes to be made during the season, as that’s extremely rare for any college football program let alone the Horned Frogs. As far as Sonny Dykes, who was the first FBS head coach to be ejected for two unsportsmanlike conduct fouls, he offered an apology to the fans in his post-game press conference before mentioning that he felt his ejection might have been “unwarranted”. I’m not entirely sure how he could feel that way when he was flagged on two separate occasions for arguing with the officials. If he wants to criticize the officials, then do it after the game, not during the game when you’re actively hurting your team with penalty yards. TCU finished with 13 penalties for 104 yards against the Mustangs and the team’s undisciplined performance was, in my view, a reflection of Dykes as the head coach. Finally, in terms of fixing the run game, Dykes said in his midweek press conference on Tuesday that there’s an open competition on the offensive line right now, so I think we could see a new starting five against Kansas. One player to watch would be second-year tackle Ben Taylor-Whitfield, who was getting most of the action in the second half. Starting right tackle Mike Nichols was flagged multiple times and the other tackle, Bless Harris, gave up the sack that caused the Josh Hoover fumble.

I’m not surprised that TCU fans were shocked to see the Horned Frogs lose in this fashion, as I was genuinely baffled with how bad the team played on Saturday. I think this loss coming in a rivalry matchup hurts more for the fans, who overwhelmingly agreed that this was the worst loss of the Sonny Dykes era, which also includes a 69-45 loss at Oklahoma last season and the infamous 65-7 loss to Georgia in the national championship. When the program reaches rock bottom, there’s no way to go but up, right?

When we polled our Twitter fans at the start of the season, most fans agreed that 8-9 wins were the most realistic for the Horned Frogs in 2024. That figure has already come down quite a bit, as the largest percentage of fans polled this week believe TCU won’t even make a bowl game. There are still a fair amount who think the Horned Frogs can get to 6-7 wins, but it’s clear that the fan base is losing its optimism for this season very quickly. Fans are also growing frustrated with Sonny Dykes, who has a losing record at the helm since his team was blown out against Georgia in 2022. Nearly 87 percent of voters have already lost confident in Dykes or are losing confidence in him. I mentioned in my Frog Recap that the hot seat could be warming up for Dykes, who signed a contract extension after 2022 but has failed to live up to expectations since then. I’m holding out hope that the Horned Frogs can figure things out, but this season could snowball quickly if TCU loses again Saturday.