A teammate who’s usually in the middle of everything suddenly goes quiet, pulls on his headphones and starts sitting by himself.
That kind of shift can slip past almost anyone during a college football season. But for Nate Guyton, it’s exactly the sort of thing that should trigger a conversation.
“That’s how we frame it,” Guyton said. “OK, this player is usually talking and engaging all the time and now he’s sitting alone with headphones.”
Guyton is a co-founder of Victory Calling, a program working alongside TCU football to strengthen connection and peer support inside the team. The idea is straightforward: if teammates really know one another, they’re more likely to spot when something is off and step in.
The goal is not to turn players into diagnosticians. It’s to make sure nobody feels invisible and that support is there when it’s needed.
That matters in a college football environment where the workload doesn’t stop at practice. Players are balancing classes, training and games, while NIL opportunities can bring a second layer of responsibility. Social media content, appearances, sponsorship deadlines and public image all come with the territory, and those demands stack on top of academic and athletic obligations.
At TCU, head coach Sonny Dykes has made it clear that caring for players means looking after more than just the physical side of the sport. That approach helped open the door for resources players can actually see and use within the program.
Victory Calling, created by Guyton and Peter Nagel, centers on mental fitness and peer connection. The program uses what it calls Solution-Focused Sport Psychology, encouraging coaches and athletes to identify what’s already working and build from there.
“We’re trying to amplify everyone on campus with this. It’s not something that replaces anything,” Guyton said. “We take the strengths of the universities that we work with and we try to amplify them by working with the staff and coaches and building something that works for them.”
That philosophy leans on relationships, not just technology. Community, leadership and compassion all play a role in helping athletes feel connected to their team on and off the field. In practice, that means players know each other well enough to notice a change and feel comfortable asking a question.
The peer-support network at the heart of the program is built for exactly that. If a player who’s normally locked in and social suddenly pulls away, a teammate is supposed to notice and reach out with a listening ear.
It’s an added layer of support, not a substitute for professional care. Guyton is a licensed clinician, and the peer leaders are trained to spot changes and steer teammates toward further help when it’s needed.
Across Victory Calling’s partner programs over the past two years, trained peer leaders have helped connect six students in crisis to professional mental health care, according to Guyton. That total is not broken out by school, including TCU football, because the program protects student privacy.
“The credit belongs to the peer leaders who noticed and reached out, and to the clinicians who provided care,” Guyton said.
He also said the work is never static.
“What we do looks different every year because there are different players,” Guyton said. “I think it’s really important we build differently every year.
We just don’t get caught up in symptoms and diagnoses. It’s not very useful language in mental health, but what is useful is paying attention and observing that something is different.”
Victory Calling extends that approach beyond face-to-face interaction. Its mobile app includes daily check-ins, content modules, weekly scaling, peer-leader voting and push notifications, giving players another way to reflect on how they’re doing and stay connected through the grind of the season.
Still, the program keeps coming back to the same point: the first conversation matters most. One teammate notices another has changed and asks how he’s doing.
For Guyton, that’s the moment that can make the difference. And with college athletes juggling football, class and public life through NIL, having someone ready to answer that call can mean more than it seems.
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