TCU’s Playoff Hangover Won’t Go Away
Two years ago, TCU played in the national championship game. They were one game away from a title. Max Duggan was a Heisman finalist. Sonny Dykes was Coach of the Year. Everything was magic.
Now they’re 6-6 and hoping to beat Texas A&M in a bowl game nobody will watch.
What the hell happened?
I’ve been trying to figure this out all season. TCU has good facilities. Good location for recruiting. A coach who proved he could compete at the highest level. They shouldn’t have regressed this far.
But here’s the thing about that 2022 season: it was kind of a miracle.
TCU won like nine games that year by one score or less. They were in a hundred close games and somehow won all of them. Duggan played out of his mind. The bounces went their way. The fourth-quarter magic was real.
And then the magic ran out.
2023 was a step back. 2024 was another step back. And 2025 was supposed to be the year they figured it out, except they didn’t. The quarterback carousel continued — Josh Hoover showed flashes but also threw 13 interceptions. The defense was inconsistent. The explosiveness that defined the 2022 offense just wasn’t there.
Sonny Dykes is a good coach. I believe that. The 2022 run wasn’t a fluke of luck — there was real coaching and real development that made it possible. But the roster management since then has been rough. The portal hasn’t worked out the way they needed. The recruiting classes haven’t delivered immediate impact.
6-6 is not a disaster. They’re going to a bowl game. They’ll beat A&M (probably) and finish 7-6. That’s fine for most programs.
But TCU isn’t most programs. TCU was in the national championship game. TCU fans know what the ceiling looks like. 6-6 feels like failure even if it’s technically acceptable.
Jake’s note: The craziest thing about TCU’s decline is that it felt inevitable? Like, watching them in 2022, I kept thinking “there’s no way this keeps working.” And it didn’t. They just couldn’t sustain that level of close-game heroics.
I think TCU bounces back. I think Dykes figures it out. But it’s going to take a full roster reset — a couple transfer portal cycles, a couple recruiting classes, a quarterback who can take care of the ball.
The 2022 magic isn’t coming back. They have to build something new.
— Mike