{"id":97174,"date":"2025-07-27T16:47:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T16:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/97174\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T16:47:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T16:47:13","slug":"tcu-eager-to-build-on-last-years-strong-finish-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/97174\/","title":{"rendered":"TCU eager to build on last year’s strong finish \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: <\/b>12th in a series previewing each team in the Big 12 in 2025.<\/p>\n

Along with going on and on about the state of college football and the guardrails needed to keep it as great as it is, TCU coach Sonny Dykes took some time at the Big 12 football media days earlier this month to actually talk about his own team.<\/p>\n

And he did so in glowing terms, which is easy to do when you have one of the top quarterbacks in college football, let alone the Big 12<\/a>, returning for another year.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Special Collector’s Issue: “1984: The Year BYU was Second to None”<\/p>\n

Get an inclusive look inside BYU Football’s 1984 National Championship season.<\/p>\n

That would be Josh Hoover, who torched BYU for 439 yards and four touchdowns in his first college start, back on Oct. 14, 2023. Hoover is being called the next great Horned Frogs QB, joining the ranks of Max Duggan and Andy Dalton.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI think our guys know what to do, know how to do it. I expect us to make a big jump as a program, defensively. What is a successful season for us? It is to reach our potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0TCU coach Sonny Dykes<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hoover, a 6-foot-2, 200-pound junior from Heath, Texas, guided the Frogs to a 9-4 record in 2024, including a 34-3 waxing of Louisiana in the New Mexico Bowl. TCU went 6-3 in Big 12 play, just missing out on a berth in the Big 12 championship game.<\/p>\n

In many ways, it was a case of what could have been for Dykes\u2019 team, which won six of its last seven games in 2024. Losses to Big 12 bottom-feeders UCF and Houston spoiled what would have been another standout season in Fort Worth.<\/p>\n

It should also be noted that TCU\u2019s schedule wasn\u2019t the greatest in 2024; five of its six conference wins came against teams that didn\u2019t make a bowl game, including Utah.<\/p>\n

So what does 2025 look like for TCU?<\/p>\n

Dykes said a realistic goal is making the Big 12 championship game, partly because of the return of Hoover and also because defensive coordinator Andy Avalos \u2014 the former Boise State coach \u2014 is back for his second year.<\/p>\n

\u201cJosh Hoover really finished the season strong last year,\u201d Dykes said. \u201cI am really excited about who he is, what kind of leader he is, what kind of player he is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoover threw for a school-record 3,949 yards and accounted for 31 total touchdowns last year. And he did that without having much of a running game to speak of, Dykes said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did not run the football well last year,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you say, \u2018What do you need to improve on early in the year?\u2019 It would be turnovers. We were a turnover machine last year. We turned the ball over way too many times, and we didn\u2019t create enough turnovers defensively.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kendal Briles enters his third year as TCU\u2019s offensive coordinator.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our guys know what to do, know how to do it,\u201d Dykes said. \u201cI expect us to make a big jump as a program, defensively. What is a successful season for us? It is to reach our potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Frogs are three seasons removed from playing for the national title, and Dykes said the 2025 team reminds him a lot of the 2022 team that Duggan led to a national semifinals win over Michigan and a national title game appearance against Georgia.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of it is going to be how these pieces come together,\u201d he said. \u201cI think we are at the point in our program right now where if we are not in the Big 12 championship game, it\u2019s probably not a successful season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back are nine starters apiece on each side of the ball. However, Hoover did lose a couple of his top pass-catchers to the NFL \u2014 Savion Williams, Jack Bech and JP Richardson. Look for Eric McAlister to step in as Hoover\u2019s top target, along with a couple of standouts from the transfer portal, Houston\u2019s Joseph Majack IV and Idaho\u2019s Jordan Dwyer.<\/p>\n

Running backs Jeremy Payne and Nate Palmer will need to improve, after the Frogs averaged just 3.7 yards per carry in 2024.<\/p>\n

Hoover, McAlister, offensive lineman Colton Deery, linebackers Devean Deal and Namdi Objazor and defensive back Bud Clark made the short trip from Fort Worth to Frisco for the Big 12 media days.<\/p>\n

\"TCUTCU head coach Sonny Dykes speaks during the Big 12 football media days in Frisco, Texas, Wednesday, July 9, 2025. | AP <\/p>\n

\u201cThey love playing at TCU. They love going to school at TCU. They love living in Fort Worth. They\u2019re really committed to not letting their teammates down. It\u2019s a fun team to coach. I just love being around these guys,\u201d Dykes said. \u201cWe went to dinner last night as a group. I loved talking to them. I loved hearing about what they were doing. It is just a special group of guys \u2014 smart, mature, unselfish, hardworking young people that we can all be proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

TCU Horned Frogs 2025 preview<\/p>\n

2024 record: 9-4 (6-3 Big 12)<\/b><\/p>\n

2025 schedule<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Sept. 1 \u2014 at North Carolina<\/li>\n
  • Sept. 6 \u2014 Open<\/li>\n
  • Sept. 13 \u2014 Abilene Christian<\/li>\n
  • Sept. 20 \u2014 SMU<\/li>\n
  • Sept. 26 \u2014 At Arizona State<\/li>\n
  • Oct. 4 \u2014 Colorado<\/li>\n
  • Oct. 11 \u2014 at Kansas State<\/li>\n
  • Oct. 18 \u2014 Baylor<\/li>\n
  • Oct. 25 \u2014 at West Virginia<\/li>\n
  • Nov. 1 \u2014 Open<\/li>\n
  • Nov. 8 \u2014 Iowa State<\/li>\n
  • Nov. 15 \u2014 at BYU<\/b><\/li>\n
  • Nov. 22 \u2014 at Houston<\/li>\n
  • Nov. 29 \u2014 Cincinnati<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: 12th in a series previewing each team in the Big 12 in 2025. Along with going…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":97175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,7371,7372,1680,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-97174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fort-worth","10":"tag-fortworth","11":"tag-news-feed-local","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-tx","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114926219739072155","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}