Sonny Dykes Speaks At Big 12 Media Days
7/10/2025 2:09:00 PM | Football
TCU Head Coach Sonny Dykes Transcript
"Yeah, I just want to say first of all, thank you to the media for being here. We're fortunate to be able to be in this great facility here in Dallas, which is certainly convenient for me and our players and just appreciate being in the city of Dallas where college football means so much in the whole DFW area.
Also want to compliment the coaches that are here. You know, it's pretty remarkable. You see Kyle Whittingham, back there, has been at Utah for 22 years. Mike Gundy, I think year 21 at Oklahoma State. You know the success those guys have had is really pretty remarkable.
You know, you look at Willie Fritz, Lance Leipold—those guys are outstanding football coaches. Have won at places that are very difficult to win at. I just think overall this Conference has tremendous coaches. Guys that know how to win. Guys that know how to win at tough places.
Really, really excited about the Big 12. I think Brett's done a tremendous job of positioning us. Excited about the future of college football. I talked about this earlier, it's been surgery by chainsaw to get us where we are today, but I do think we're making progress in the right direction in terms of the big picture things that are happening now.
Finally, the talent is being compensated in college football and the players are being paid. My sincere hope is that everyone operates within the spirit of the rules, just like they do in professional sports. I'd like to see college football cleaned up. I want to see it cleaned up for the student-athletes. I think as coaches, we're supposed to set an
example for them, and as universities, we're supposed to set an example. So, my hope is that teams will operate within the new rules and that we'll have great parity in college football. It's the greatest game in the world. It's an exciting time of year. There's no place I'd rather be than Big 12 Media Day today.
So again, thank you for being here. I look forward to visiting with you guys."
"Coach, how do you feel about your running back room right now, and specifically Jeremy Payne and Nate Palmer going into this season?"
"Yeah, good question. Excited about that group. We did not run the football well last year. If you say, what do you need to improve on? Early in the year, we were a turnover machine. We turned the ball over way too many times. We didn't create enough turnovers defensively. We've got to be able to stop the run better defensively. But the big thing is, we've got to be able to run the football on offense. Our offense works at a really, really high level when we can run the ball. We have some young running backs. Nate Palmer really asserted himself in the spring, got some carries in the bowl game last year, started to see some really good things from him. I'm very excited about him. He's a young player that I think has a tremendous opportunity.
Jeremy Payne is another very exciting young player who really was our most productive running back last season. Trent Battle is a veteran who's been a journeyman for us. He's done a lot of different things for our program to help us win. He's coming back. And then Kevorian Barnes is a transfer that we're very excited about.
We've got to finish runs and play more physical than we did last year at that position. Those guys are capable of doing that. We've got to play better up front. We've got to do a better job being physical and having that mindset. I think a big part of our success this year is going to be determined by how well we run the football and can we do it consistently and can we do it in critical situations."
"For you guys, we know talking during the spring, you really like this team. You really like the depth. You got both your coordinators back, retained most of your players in the spring. I'm curious, what does success look like for you this season?"
"I think everything you said is true. When you have your quarterback back, obviously, Josh Hoover. I thought he really finished the season strong last year. Really excited about who he is, what kind of leader he is, what kind of player he is.
Having [defensive coordinator] Andy Avalos back for Year Two, I think we'll make some huge strides defensively. I think we're going to be able to do more things. We've got more depth outside, really at the cornerback position that I think will allow us some freedom that we hadn't had in the past to be a little bit more exotic in some of the things we do defensively. Really like our depth at corner. I think we've got 6–7 guys that I feel pretty good about playing at that position, which we certainly have not had in the past.
Kendal Briles is going on Year Three as the offensive coordinator. I think our guys know what to do, know how to do it. I expect us to make a big jump as a program. What is a successful season for us? It's to reach our potential, I really do believe that. If you go back to 2022 and you said what would have been a successful season from the outside looking in, maybe 7–8 wins? We went 12–0 and ended up playing for a national championship that year. So for us, it's really about reaching our potential.
What does that look like? I don't really know that quite yet. A lot of that's going to be how do these pieces come together. I think we're at that point in our program right now where if we're not in the Big 12 Championship Game, it's probably not a successful season. That's where we want to be. We think we're a team that year in, year out should be in the Big 12 title hunt.
We think this team is capable of doing that. We'll see how it plays out. There are going to be so many factors that go into that. Can we stay healthy? Do the guys come through like we think they can? Can we play at a high level? Can we learn to deal with adversity and success and all the things that you have to go through to have a successful season?
But I like this team. I really do. I like our makeup. I like the guys. We have six really special young men with us today. Guys that are mature, guys that are unselfish, and guys that really care about the team. You don't hear that discussed very often in today's college football world. Some of it's me, me, me. We don't have those kinds of issues in our program right now. We just have guys that love each other. They love playing at
TCU. They love going to school at TCU. They love living in Fort Worth. They're really committed to not letting their teammate down.
It's a fun team to coach. I just love being around these guys. We went to dinner last night as a group. I loved talking to them. I loved hearing about what they were doing. Just a special group of guys—smart, mature, unselfish, hardworking young people that we can all be proud of."
"To follow up what you were talking about your quarterback Josh Hoover, he set a school record throwing for nearly 4,000 yards last season. Do you think his experience, production, and leadership can leave a legacy like Andy Dalton's or Max Duggan's at TCU?"
"Yeah, I hope so. I mean, I think like I said earlier, when you sit down and you say, okay, what makes a quarterback a great quarterback? I'm not so sure that the most important quality isn't an innate ability to just make people around you better. And I think that's what Josh does better than anything.
Now look, he throws the ball as well as any quarterback I've coached, and I've been fortunate to coach some good ones. Number one pick overall, Super Bowl MVP, guys like that that have gone on, had a lot of success at the next level. He's right there in terms of his ability to throw the football.
But his most important and best characteristic is just who he is. He brings out the best in people. He's incredibly unselfish. The guys love him. They respond to him. They know that he cares more about them than he does himself, and that's pretty special at that position.
And in today's world, quarterbacks sometimes can be a handful to deal with, and he's not that way at all. He's just such a great teammate. But, I think he's going to have a big year. I really do.
I think the thing that is going to make him even more successful is I think he believes in the supporting cast. I think he believes in what we're doing from a scheme standpoint. I know that he believes that we're going to be better defensively, and that takes a lot of
pressure off of him to go out there and have to score 40–50 points to win. We're not going to have to do that.
And so he can go out there and check the ball down and make the routine plays, and that's going to be good enough to give us a chance to win on Saturdays. And when you know that as a quarterback, that takes a lot of pressure off of you. It just allows you to go out and perform and do your job and not try to do too much.
And so, I think he'll take a big step and continue to progress, and I think he'll be one of the elite quarterbacks in college football."
"Just wanted to ask you, how impactful has Elijah [Jackson] been to your program, and then what do you see for him this season?"
"Well, you know, he's been a little bit banged up so far. He had a pretty significant injury coming over from Washington. He played on the national championship team at Washington as a starting corner. Expect him to be a vital part of our team.
Got a lot of experience playing. Really, really talented. Haven't really seen him completely well yet. Had a pretty significant surgery, but reports are that he is back full speed, participating fully and fully cleared. So excited to see what he's going to do.
I mean, he plays with a lot of confidence. He's a really interesting guy, got a great personality about him. Very competitive. Certainly, going to give us a ton of depth at that position and a lot of experience.
And as I talked about earlier, in today's world, having corners that you're comfortable matching up with just really changes what you can do defensively. It allows you so much more freedom, and you can be much more aggressive in what you want to do and how you want to do it. So excited about Elijah and what he's going to mean to our program."
"I have a two-part question for you. With Bud Clark entering what could be his final college season, how close do you feel he is to being NFL-ready? And from a coach's perspective, what areas do you feel he needs more improvement?" "Yeah, good question. I think Bud, quite frankly, was probably NFL-ready last year. Bud has played so much football. If you go back and you look at the 2022 season, we're
playing in big games and Bud's making play after play after play in those big gameon s the biggest stage, in the national championship game and the semifinal game against Michigan. [He] made a bunch of big plays.
He's got a knack for being around the football. He's a really athletic, long, rangy safety that can cover. He's much more physical maybe than you think he is. Really good tackler.
He played at a high level last year, but I think he realizes he's capable of playing even better, and I think that's what brought him back. That's one of the things that I think is good about rev share now. You can go and you can pay a guy like Bud Clark what he deserves to get paid now, and he doesn't have to go to the NFL. He's able to come back for another year, refine his craft, get a little bit stronger, a little bit bigger.
Bud's been one of those guys that burns really hot. He's had a hard time putting weight on, and I think now he's gotten bigger, he's gotten stronger. That's going to help him be more durable, stay healthy.
So anyway, I'm really excited about what he's capable of. He's got that experience. The safety position right now is like the linebacker position used to be in college football. Those are the guys that have to be leaders. They get everybody lined up. They communicate. Playing safety is a very, very difficult thing from a mental standpoint in today's college football game. Bud understands the game and Bud's very comfortable in the game and what he does. He's going to have a heck of a year. I'm excited."
"You mentioned earlier about players getting paid and coaches staying within the spirit of the rules. Are there any other guidelines with that you think need to be added? And anything with that with the portal as well?"
"Yeah. I think right now, college football is partnered with Deloitte and what Deloitte is going to do with accessing real NIL and what that's going to mean. So what happens if you violate that? What's going to be the cost of doing that and all the things?
There's so much football, there's so much passion around college football right now. You're gonna have people, boosters and fans want to break rules. I mean, that's been part of the game of football forever. Going back 100 years, it's been happening forever.
And I think finally now we have a system, or we're developing a system, that is supposed to help provide some guidance in that. And my hope is that Deloitte has teeth, that the NCAA provides them with an opportunity, or college football provides them with an opportunity to help manage these things. Because college football is better when there's parity. That's what makes the NFL great. There's 16–18 teams right now in the NFL that probably have a legitimate chance to go to the Super Bowl and win the championship. That's more than 50% of the league. Is that the case in college football? No, it's certainly not. And we need to have as much parity in the game as we can possibly have. The only way that you can do that is by having revenue sharing, which we finally have, but then also controlling the NIL money that is made on top of that.
My hope is that they do that. My hope is that system is developed at a very high level, operates at a high level, punishes people that need to be punished, and results in college football becoming even better because the game is great.
It's a great time for the game of football right now. As I said, the players are being compensated. The players have freedom to make decisions that' benefit them and their families. It's about time that they've had those.
It's resulted in some awkward situations for all of us involved in the game, but I think it's where it needs to be. I'm really, really excited about the future of college football. I really believe in the game. I believe in the players.
I just want the adults to be adults. I want us to operate within the framework of the rules. I want us to do what is best for the game and what's best for the kids. We need to have that mentality as we move forward.
My hope is that we'll continue to develop those systems and those systems will be able to have some teeth and will be able to do what they need to do to help govern the game and make it even better than it is."
