TCU’s football future is getting judged on more than wins and losses now. Sonny Dykes’ job security sits right in the middle of a bigger financial squeeze, and that reality is likely to come up when the school’s board of trustees meets this week.
The board is set to tackle a range of issues after the resignation of chancellor Daniel Pullin and the return of Victor Boschini, including the state of the school’s highest-paid employee. That means Dykes, but it also means the budget tied to an athletic department trying to navigate a college sports landscape where schools are now expected to pay athletes six and seven figures to play, especially in football.
TCU is hardly alone in that bind. Kansas, Clemson, Colorado, California and other Power Four programs are dealing with the same frustration: a fan base that wants the coach gone, but a financial picture that makes a quick move far more complicated than it used to be.
The old math has changed. In the past, firing a coach mostly meant writing a check to make him go away.
Now the bill can include the next coach, the staff that comes with him, and the players who are part of the new pay-for-play reality. That makes the cost of change much harder to swallow.
TCU already adjusted Dykes’ contract in the spring, adding years in exchange for lowering a buyout figure that has become a constant talking point. The school has plenty of money by normal standards, but not money sitting around waiting to be spent on a coaching change.
Its endowment is $2.9 billion, up 80 percent over the last five years, according to the Business Journal. But university leadership has preferred not to treat that endowment like a checking account. The money is meant to be handled through the standard payout that covers annual expenses, not tapped for transfer-portal shopping or a coach’s buyout.
That matters because TCU’s spending has already been stretched in other directions. Over the last decade, enrollment and tuition have both risen, while the university has taken on major new costs across campus. It added a medical school and has also poured money into its push for 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, slow and not guaranteed. TCU and Wake Forest are the only two schools in the P4 that are not R1.
All of that is happening while college sports has moved into a pay-for-play system with almost no restrictions and private deals everywhere. At the same time, head coach and top coordinator salaries have gone from stupid to offensive.
For TCU, that means the athletic department’s problems are not really separate from the rest of the university’s. They may live under different budgets, but they are still under the same financial roof.
That is why eating a coach’s buyout, then paying his replacement and covering the transition costs, is not an easy decision for TCU or for schools in the same spot. The question is not just whether the football team has disappointed. It is whether moving on helps enough to justify the damage to the budget.
Florida State already made that kind of call, firing Mike Norvell and taking on his $50 million buyout.
For now, Dykes still has a path to make the case that he should stay. TCU hosts Kansas State at 1 p.m.
Saturday in Fort Worth in a matchup between two teams trying to avoid last place in the Big 12. The weather is expected to be in the mid-60s, but the mood around the game is likely to be rough.
TCU is a 10-point favorite and can move to 4-5 with a win, leaving it one victory short of bowl eligibility with two games left. But the game itself is not the main attraction. The bigger story is the coach’s future.
TCU does not want to fire Dykes, and money is a major reason why. He also still has people in the building who believe in him, even as support among a large part of the fan base fades.
Dykes can point to the new era of college football and argue that good teams now lose two or three games even in successful seasons. He can also point to the fact that his team has lost five games by one score, with the offense doing most of the damage.
And now there is one more wrinkle: starting next season, the playoff will expand from 12 to 24 teams, a move that was announced Monday.
All of that will be part of the conversation this week when TCU’s board meets and decides whether moving on from Sonny Dykes is worth the price.
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