TCU’s board of trustees is set to meet this week in the wake of chancellor Daniel Pullin’s resignation and Victor Boschini’s return, and Sonny Dykes will be part of the conversation. The school’s highest-paid employee is on the agenda as TCU weighs a budget that will shape the athletic department’s future while college sports keeps forcing schools to spend like never before.
That is the reality now for TCU and plenty of other Power Four programs. Kansas, Clemson, Colorado, California - the list goes on.
These are schools with big football bills, restless fan bases and very little appetite for another season that goes nowhere. In the old world, a coach’s buyout was the cleanest escape hatch.
In the new one, that decision is messier because the players are on the bill, too.
TCU already adjusted Dykes’ contract in the spring, adding years in exchange for a lower buyout number that has become a constant talking point. The school can afford a lot, but not without limits.
Its endowment stands at $2.9 billion, up 80 percent over the last five years according to the Business Journal, and university leadership has preferred to leave that money alone except for the usual payout that covers annual expenses. That endowment is not sitting there as a quick fix for a coaching change or a transfer portal splash.
The spending pressure around the university has only grown. Enrollment and tuition have both climbed over the last decade, but so have the costs of major campus projects.
TCU added a medical school and has also pushed toward Carnegie R1 classification, the designation for schools that grant doctoral degrees and have “very high research activity.” That medical school is still years from paying off, and the R1 chase is expensive, long and not guaranteed.
TCU and Wake Forest are the only two schools in the P4 that are not R1.
At the same time, college athletics has shifted into a pay-for-play model with almost no restrictions, and the money involved in coaching salaries has only made the whole thing more expensive. Athletic department finances may be separate on paper, but they still live under the same university umbrella. Paying off a coach, then paying the next one, then covering the transition costs for an entire staff is not a move TCU - or Kansas, Colorado, Clemson and the rest - wants to make lightly.
That is why the question around Dykes is bigger than wins and losses. It is also about whether eating a buyout is worth it when the team’s football program is supposed to be the school’s most visible marketing tool, and instead can become a drag on everything else.
Florida State already made that call with Mike Norvell, firing him and taking on his $50 million buyout.
For now, TCU still has reasons to hold off. The Horned Frogs host Kansas State at 1 p.m.
Saturday in Fort Worth in a matchup between two teams trying to avoid the bottom of the Big 12. The temperature is expected to be in the mid-60s, but the forecast for the game is “Depressing with a 90 percent chance of booing.”
TCU is a 10-point favorite and can move to 4-5, one win from bowl eligibility with two games left after that. Still, the game itself is hardly the main attraction. The real storyline is Dykes’ future.
TCU does not want to fire him, and money is a major reason why. He has lost support with a large part of the fan base, but he still has people inside the program who believe in him.
He can point to the modern college football landscape and say a good team is going to drop two or three games. He can also point to his own team being “close,” even if the record tells the harsher truth: five losses by one score, with an offense that has been the biggest problem.
Now there is one more layer to the debate. Starting next season, the playoffs expand from 12 to 24 teams, a move announced Monday. That change will be part of the discussion too as TCU’s board meets this week and decides whether moving on from Dykes is worth the cost.
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Notre Dame, Oregon and BYU are among the teams watching closely as the committee weighs not just resumes, but the way those resumes now compare after the latest chaos. The official rankings will answer some questions and only deepen others, especially with so many playoff scenarios still in play and so many teams still trying to separate themselves before the season reaches its final stretch. [Read more 🡒]