{"id":865773,"date":"2026-09-30T10:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T10:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/865773\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T10:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T10:54:12","slug":"sonny-dykes-addresses-tcus-slow-2026-start-ahead-of-byu-matchup-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/865773\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonny Dykes addresses TCU\u2019s slow 2026 start ahead of BYU matchup \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The water\u2019s getting deeper for TCU in 2026.<\/p>\n

The Horned Frogs are 2-2, recently losing their Big 12 opener at UCF and having fallen to North Carolina in Week 0 as well.<\/p>\n

Sonny Dykes\u2019 team is among the most penalized in the country, with his own future in Fort Worth appearing to be in question. Frustrations for TCU have even reached the point of a players-only meeting occurring ahead of Saturday\u2019s matchup with No. 10 BYU.<\/p>\n

Cougars on the air<\/p>\n

No. 10 BYU (3-0,1-0) at TCU (2-2, 0-1)<\/p>\n

Saturday, 5 p.m. MDTAt Amon G. Carter Stadium, Fort Worth, TexasTV: ESPNRadio: 102.7 FM \/ 1160 AM<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that those guys took initiative, you know, they felt the same things,\u201d Dykes told reporters Tuesday of the players\u2019 meeting. \u201cThey felt like we haven\u2019t performed as well as we need to. We obviously did not need to point that out to them, our guys are highly invested. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs I\u2019ve said from the beginning, I like this team. I like the fact that they really like each other, they care about each other, they\u2019re accountable to each other. So I was pleased that those guys wanted to get together, talk about some things and try to do everything within our power to play better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dykes is 38-19 at TCU, leading the Horned Frogs to the national championship game in 2022 and posting 9-4 records in each of the past two seasons. However, TCU hasn\u2019t factored into the Big 12 title race since the magic of 2022, and many now view the program as moving in the wrong direction. The concerning start to the 2026 season certainly hasn\u2019t helped dispel such belief.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say not as much as we need to,\u201d Dykes said, responding to being asked if he feels his team is playing with confidence. \u201cThat to me has been a little bit of an issue.<\/p>\n

\u201c… It goes back to coaching. If you\u2019re not playing well, it\u2019s always coaching, and we always have to look at ourselves first. It always begins with us, and the players are a product of how we\u2019ve coached them. We just have to improve in those specific areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tough time for the Horned Frogs to be low on confidence, as the No. 10-ranked, College Football Playoff-caliber Cougars come to town Saturday fresh off their bye week and looking for their first win in Fort Worth since 2006.<\/p>\n

TCU and BYU were fierce rivals in the Mountain West Conference, but that past animosity hasn\u2019t quite boiled so hot since reuniting in the Big 12. The Horned Frogs smacked the Cougars 44-11 in 2023, while BYU returned the favor with a 44-13 victory last year in Provo.<\/p>\n

Dykes, who calls Kalani Sitake a \u201cclose friend,\u201d shared his respect for how Sitake has elevated BYU\u2019s program since joining the Big 12, saying that he feels the 2026 Cougars are \u201cprobably his best team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt goes back to coaching. If you\u2019re not playing well, it\u2019s always coaching, and we always have to look at ourselves first. It always begins with us, and the players are a product of how we\u2019ve coached them. We just have to improve in those specific areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0TCU coach Sonny Dykes on his team’s uneven start to the 2026 season<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a little rocky at first (for BYU in the Big 12), you know what I mean? It took a little bit of time for (Sitake) to get it going, and the thing that\u2019s impressive is they\u2019ve gotten better,\u201d Dykes said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that he had a vision for what the program needed to be. I think the fact that he had been around and he had seen what the program looked like when it was really well-run, organized and kind of executing at its peak, I think he knows the formula for BYU, understands the place, and has really consistently just gotten better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Continued Dykes, \u201cI think they\u2019re playing to their strengths. They\u2019ve always had big offensive linemen. They\u2019ve always been able to go recruit physical guys and they\u2019ve always played a physical brand of football. I think that\u2019s their mentality, that\u2019s the way that they\u2019re built, limiting mistakes and running the football.\u201d<\/p>\n

Against TCU in 2025, BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier enjoyed arguably the finest outing of his decorated freshman campaign, completing 70% of his passes for 296 yards and a touchdown while adding 56 yards and another score on the ground.<\/p>\n

Bachmeier has proven to be even better as a sophomore<\/a>, especially in the passing game, giving the Horned Frogs their biggest defensive challenge to date.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that he\u2019s really dialed in with what they\u2019re doing and how they\u2019re doing it,\u201d Dykes said of Bachmeier. \u201cI mean, they just don\u2019t make mistakes. This is a team that very seldom turns the ball over, very seldom has penalties, stays ahead of the chains, runs the football consistently. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then the quarterback, he can run the football,\u201d he continued. \u201cHe\u2019s a big, strong runner. He\u2019s also a really good thrower, and they\u2019ve got more speed at wide receiver now than they\u2019ve had in the past, they\u2019re getting the ball down the field, taking shots down the field. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been really accurate on their shot passes, and that\u2019s created a lot of big plays. So he\u2019s a guy right now that\u2019s just dialed in, playing at a really high level, executing about as well as you can and playing with a ton of confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Losing to BYU would put TCU at 2-3 and in danger of missing a bowl game, while upsetting the Cougars would breathe new life into the Horned Frogs\u2019 season \u2014 and cool off Dykes\u2019 hot seat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re disappointed, we\u2019re hurt, but we realize if we sit around and pout about it, that\u2019s not going to make it better,\u201d Dykes said. \u201c… We obviously are evaluating every aspect of our program, trying to figure out why we\u2019re not playing as well as we need to play to win games. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about this when the season started, a big point of emphasis for us is the number of one-score games that we\u2019re going to play in and the formula to win those games, and that\u2019s win the turnover battle and limit penalties and mistakes. <\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately for us in those two (losses), we haven\u2019t done those things. So we\u2019ve got to figure it out as a staff and investigate every reason why that\u2019s been the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"BYU head coach Kalani Sitake and TCU Horned Frogs head coach Sonny Dykes talk at midfield before the game at LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025. | Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The water\u2019s getting deeper for TCU in 2026. The Horned Frogs are 2-2, recently losing their Big 12…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,3125,99],"class_list":["post-865773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-news-feed-local","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}