Note: This story is featured in the 2026 edition of Dave Campbell's Texas Football's Summer Magazine, which you can order here.

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The landscape of the Big 12 has changed dramatically since Sonny Dykes led the Horned Frogs to the national championship game in 2022, his first season in charge at TCU. Texas and Oklahoma left for the SEC, four teams from the Pac-12 were added, and NIL and revenue sharing created a new hierarchy in the league and across the sport.  

Dykes, and many others, believed that TCU could fill the power vacuum left by the Longhorns and the Sooners. He believed it could be as good as any job in the conference when he left crosstown rival SMU for the job in Fort Worth. The Horned Frogs had a tradition of winning and name brand value plus the fertile recruiting grounds of the Metroplex. And with most of the other Big 12 schools being rural at that time, Dykes believed that TCU would be atop the new Big 12 from an investment standpoint.  

But that all changed with Texas Tech’s financial emergence and the additions of programs such as BYU. The Red Raiders and the Cougars emerged as the yearly favorites in the Big 12 because of their money advantage. As Dykes points out, there is strength in numbers while fundraising and private schools like TCU can match the donor numbers of public schools like Texas Tech or ones tied to the Mormon Church.  

“It's changed a lot since I took the job, I mean a whole lot and in about as many ways as you can possibly change it, but I still feel strongly that we’re in a good spot,” Dykes said about the new realities in the Big 12. “We just need to continue to bring in the right people into the building and develop the players and retain them. That’s going to be the kind of model we’re going to have to implement.” 

Dykes, known as a portal king before the portal was cool, wants his Horned Frogs to be a bit of a contrarian. Rather than focus on the transfer portal, TCU sees a market deficiency in the high school recruiting ranks. Dykes & Co. signed the top ranked class in the Big 12 in 2025 and the second best in 2024. The 2023 class ranked third in the Big 12 behind Texas and Oklahoma. The Frogs believe the fruits of those classes will pay dividends in 2026.  

“A lot of our most talented guys in the program are the young guys,” Dykes explained. “We have some guys that are really talented, probably more talented than we’ve had here in a long time, but they are a little bit unproven. So, we just need to get them consistent and to step up and perform at a high level.” 

TCU is the winningest program in the Big 12 since Dykes took over in 2022 and the Frogs remain the only current Big 12 team to have won a College Football Playoff game, but they’re 14-13 in conference play since the start of 2023. Dykes built a career by avoiding losses to lesser teams but he admits that’s been a real Achilles heel for his team over the last couple of years, including losses to a 6-6 Kansas State squad in 2025 and in 2024 to UCF and Houston teams that were a combined 8-16.  

Dykes believes a new look offense that cuts down on turnovers and improves the run game, combined with an improving defense that brings back defensive coordinator Andy Avalos for a third straight year, can get his Frogs back into Big 12 contention.  

“I think we have a chance to be a good football team and a competitive football team and I’ll be disappointed if we’re not in the conference race in November,” Dykes said. “That is the expectation for our football program. We’ve had consecutive nine-win seasons, which is good, but everyone in this building wants to do better.”