TCU Coach Sonny Dykes: Georgia Bulldogs "Check The Box" Offensively

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ATHENS - Georgia Bulldogs and coach Kirby Smart are getting ready to take on Sonny Dykes and the TCU Horned Frogs in the 2023 College Football Playoff National Championship Game in Los Angeles.

COACH DYKES: Just want to say on behalf of TCU and TCU's football program, we're excited to represent the Big 12 in the National Championship Game against a great Georgia opponent.

Obviously I have tremendous respect for the Southeastern Conference. Tremendous respect for Georgia getting to this point undefeated. I know they've played a great schedule. It's been an outstanding year for those guys. I want to congratulate Coach Smart and their entire program. They're obviously an outstanding football team. And we look forward to playing them on Monday night.

It will be a big challenge for us. But our players have been able to overcome challenges all year. And we're excited about an opportunity to try to do it again.

Q. I was just wondering how Kendre Miller is feeling and what's his status?

COACH DYKES: You know what? I think he's feeling pretty good. We got a pretty good eval on him the night before last when we got back from Phoenix. He was pretty sore. Woke up yesterday, felt a little bit better.

I just saw him a little bit ago. He's feeling better today. So I would say he's probably questionable, would be the way I would present it. We'll see how he progresses through the week, see how he feels, and we'll try to make a determination as we get closer to game time whether we think he's going to be ready to play or not.

Q. I wonder, seeing what Tulane has done, and also Utah has been in the Rose Bowl two straight years, what you guys have done, I don't (indiscernible) you got ready to go, but have you ever thought how cool this would be with 16 teams?

COACH DYKES: I have. I thought that way for a long time. There was probably about a 6-hour period at some point in my life in the middle of the night where Mike Leach actually convinced me it was good for a 64-team playoff. But that's another whole story. And like I said I woke up the next day and talked myself out of it.

I think 12 is going to be great. I think there's a lot of good football teams that deserve to be in the playoff. And I've always believed that the cream rises and the more opportunities that schools outside of the traditional brands get, the more those schools can become traditional brands.

I think if you exclude them, it's hard to break in. And I think this will give a lot of schools like TCU an opportunity to get in the mix and show what they're capable of.

And we were fortunate this year to get into the four-team playoff. And we were fortunate to beat a very good Michigan game and advance. And our prize is we get to play Georgia now.

So, look, you can't help but look at how much fun it's going to be when we get to that 12. And it's going to be like everything else, it's going to be a work in progress. And there's going to be some things that I'm sure we don't like about that.

But at the end of the day, the best thing, it's going to include more people. And I'm a big believer in inclusion. And so I think it's going to be a good thing.

Q. You sat through that Mike Leach conversation about 64, huh?

COACH DYKES: Oh, yeah, not -- just for about 6 years. You know what? He made some pretty good points. I just kept coming back to him saying, well, Mike, we can't play two games a week.

Q. Johnny Hodges mentioned a little earlier about the Oklahoma game being kind of eye-opening for you guys this year. I'm curious whether it was that game or another point in the season, when did you feel like this group really could be special?

COACH DYKES: I think the Oklahoma game is when we saw, okay, look, here's what we're capable of because we played really good football on all three sides of the ball. We played great offense, great defense, great special teams in that game.

It was a bit of an eye-opener for me, honestly because we played okay up to that point. We felt we were playing against really good competition.

And the big question we had to answer after that was how are we going to handle prosperity. And also how are we going to deal with adversity, because that's going to happen quickly.

And fortunately Oklahoma State rolled around right after that. And we were down 17. And we had to rally. And I think that was, to me, that was just a big a moment for our football team was seeing how we were going to do when we were down.

And the great thing about both of those games was I remember walking into the locker room at halftime of the Oklahoma game expecting to find our players celebrating and patting each other on the back. And I was going to address the team.

I walked in, everybody was sitting in their chair talking about the first half didn't mean anything. The second half is the only thing that matters. Well, fast-forward a week, we're in just the opposite situation, we're down double digits at halftime. And I expected to walk in and find guys moaning and complaining and griping and panicking and all that. I found them doing the same thing, sitting there talking about the importance of the second half.

And so, to me, that was when I thought, okay, this is a special group. These guys get it and there's some maturity, and we might have something fun here. And so those were two moments for me I thought were big.

Q. How much of that comes from the fact that some of these guys have played together so long? I know Max and Taye and Quentin and Kendre, a lot of those guys have been together for several years, and in the age of player movement it doesn't always happen. But how critical has that chemistry been for those veterans on this team?

COACH DYKES: I think there's something to that. I also think that it's just -- I think our strength and conditioning group has a lot to do with that. I think Kaz Kazadi and his group are outstanding. Those are things we've talked about every single day, and talked about every single day since I got the job there.

There's always some kind of sports psychology associated with our lifting, talking about adversity, talking about handling success, and treating them just the same, and doing the little things that we can do to make sacrifices.

Because, look, what that comes down to, that comes down to confidence. And confidence is the result of hard work and doing things that other people aren't willing to do. And our guys have done that. And so I think that's what gives us that confidence to be down in games and not panic and a belief in each other.

I think that's the big thing. Football is unique because you're counting on 11 people to do their job. And if one guy messes up then you're going to have a problem. And it's critical that all 11 people believe that the guy next to him or the guy behind him or the person in front of him, that they're going to do the right thing so they can do the right thing.

And when you have problems is when you're a safety and you don't think the corner is going to help you the way he's supposed to and you try to overcompensate for that and now you don't do your job. It's a series of dominos that begin to fall at that point.

I think these guys believe in each other. They're confident in their abilities and their schemes. The offense is confident in the defense and the defense is confident in the offense. And I think it's just a general belief in each other. And that comes from hard work and dedication and doing things the right way when not everybody's watching.

Q. Between your father and your Grandma Alta (phonetic) and other family members, I wonder how that spirit might have impacted you as a coach?

COACH DYKES: I've been really fortunate. My dad was a character. He just was. He was raised by characters. His mother and father were really great people. I didn't really get to know my grandfather at all. He died when I was very young.

My grandmother was a bit larger than life personality. My dad was a big personality. I've been lucky to work with coaches that were that way. Hal Mumme is a big personality. And Mike Leach was a big personality. And Mike Stoops was a big personality.

And guys that I've had a chance to work for, you know, they were all unique guys and they were all really one of a kind and they all had a different approach to doing things.

So those were all great mentors for me. They all had different strengths, they really did. And I think a lot of times the way that they're perceived in some ways might not be the way they really are, particularly talking about Coach Leach.

Just the perception of Mike Leach is this real complicated scheme and this innovator when it comes to Xs and Os. And he's really a believer in technique and fundamentals and keep the game simple and it's a player's game, not a coach's game.

And I got to learn those lessons from those guys. And those have obviously had a huge impact on me and the way that I've tried to build a program and develop a style and a methodology for teaching. And so I like people like that. I like people to think outside the box.

That's why I love our strength and conditioning coach so much is because he's not a believer in bigger, faster, stronger, only -- that's a very small part of what he does.

And so I think that we've tried to find ways to be creative. We've had to at places I've been. I haven't been blessed to sometimes go to traditional powers and coach at traditional powers.

When I went to LA Tech, we had to recruit a lot of junior college programs to turn our program. At SMU we had to go to the transfer portal to turn the program. And here we tried to kind of do a bunch of different things to find the best players and get them to buy in quickly.

So those people all taught me that you have to be yourself and you have to think outside the box. And you've got to not be afraid to try things maybe that other people aren't doing or try things that people tell you, hey, that's not going to work. Or you just gotta believe in yourself and believe in your plan and go out and execute it.

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Q. What's been the key, do you think, to your guys not being overwhelmed by the moment? Like Saturday, certainly they were not on the big stage; they were ready to go. It's been like that most of the season. What's been the key factors for that?

COACH DYKES: I truly believe maturity, preparation, hard work, kind of goes back to some of the things I just talked about. Just a general belief in each other and a belief that we're good enough. I think that's been the message really since I got the job here was we're good enough. We're good enough to compete. We're good enough to win game one and we're good enough to win game two. And let's take it one game at a time.

But we have all the pieces here. We just have to put them all together and we've got to do things the right way. We have to be willing to pay the price. And those guys believe that. They really have. They've believed it from day one.

And as I said earlier, look, they've done so many little things the right way and so many little things that they talk to their friends all the time and people at other schools and they've done things that other people at other schools probably aren't doing.

I think they've gained confidence from all those things, and I think it's made them just believe in each other. So they feel like the moment's not too big.

This year's team had four bowl players -- or four players on this team that had played in a bowl game for TCU. That's it. And so that experience in Phoenix was new for everybody. But those guys believed in the plan and they went out and executed it. And, again, it's just a belief in each other and our program.

Q. You mentioned about guys that thinking out of the box and coaches thinking out of the box. And your dad was at a place in Lubbock that wasn't a traditional power. He got smaller kids from -- kids from smaller classifications in this state. It looks like you've had a lot of success with kids doing that the same way.

COACH DYKES: I think so. Honestly, I think that's been something, if you go back and look at TCU's history, they've always done a really good job of recruiting players particularly in East Texas and guys that were probably under-recruited. I know Coach Franchione recruited LaDainian Tomlinson. He was an overlooked high school player from Waco, and he ended up becoming a very good player.

You go back and look at history there's been a lot of kids who came from small towns. Coach Patterson did a great job going out finding guys that fit his style of play and his program. It's kind of been a tradition here for a long time.

Q. The Georgia players were talking about how they thought they could play a lot better than they did against Ohio State. And I'm wondering, from your perspective, when you watched that game, one, what do you expect them to do better than they did; and, two, what kind of vulnerabilities did you see that you could take advantage of?

COACH DYKES: Ohio State made some big plays against them. And I'm sure particularly in the passing game. And I'm sure they're going to work to get some of those issues addressed. And, quite frankly, they just made some contested plays, and Ohio State's got a really good group of wide receivers. And those guys really played well.

And credit their quarterback. I thought C.J. Stroud played really well in that game.

So I think that, again, Georgia is not accustomed to giving up that many points, but you got to see what Georgia is all about in the fourth quarter of that game. And you got to see what kind of team they have because they responded and did exactly what you would expect them to do, found a way to win.

You've got to give Kirby and their players a ton of credit for doing that. At the end of the day, that's what this whole thing is about.

But I'm sure they're correcting some of those plays in the passing game. And those are the kind of plays that we're going to have to make. We'll have to make some 50/50 ball plays, and we'll have to have our best players step up and play big games, kind of like they did last week. And when you get to this point of the season on this kind of stage, those great players, they have to perform at a high level.

Q. I hesitate to use the word "Cinderella." Listening to you and the players, like you said, the moment doesn't seem too big. They don't seem particularly surprised. Would it be fair to say that you're rejecting the Cinderella label even though you weren't ranked in the preseason and you've turned the program around, number one? And, number two, you mentioned Georgia's comeback. But what does strike you about Georgia? Are they built somewhat similar to Michigan in their offensive personality? Are there some trends you see there?

COACH DYKES: I'll say this, I think Georgia's got probably a little bit more varied scheme than Michigan did. I thought Michigan's obviously very well-coached to have a great scheme. But Georgia does a really nice job. They're going to show you different looks. They've got great answers for things when people make adjustments in game.

Seems like Coach Monken does a nice job of staying ahead of people as they adjust, he adjusts. And they do a really good job getting their best players the ball. And they have a ton of playmakers.

That's the thing that's unique about this team. Most of the time you play against a good team and there's two or three guys you say, look, we've got a really take this guy away. But Georgia has just so many good players and guys that are really exceptional talents. You can't go into a game and just say, okay, look, we're going to -- if we take this guy away then they're going to have problems. That's not the case with their offense.

So they do a great job throwing the ball, they do a great job running the ball, they're very efficient, really good on third down, really good in the red zone. You sit down, look at all the important characteristics for an offense, and they check the box in every single one of those.

They're just a team that really doesn't have a lot of weaknesses. So that's the thing about them.

The question about the Cinderella thing, I think for a while that's kind of, I think, in some ways we probably viewed ourselves as that early on because we were figuring this thing out.

I think that if you had asked us before the season started, would we play for a national championship, most of us probably didn't think that we would. Thought that we were capable, certainly, but we just hadn't done it together.

And there is a lot that goes into doing it together. You know you can. And you learn a lot of things as the journey goes along.

So we've kind of had to build the plane while we're flying it in some ways this year. And I think that's just been something that our guys have done a fantastic job of adapting.

And to us, I think the Cinderella label probably started to wear off a little bit after the three-game gauntlet where we had to play three or four on the road, West Virginia, Texas and Baylor.

I think at that point our guys started to believe, okay, we're a real football team and we're a battle-hardened team and we've had to overcome some adversity. And you know what? We have a chance to make a run.

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