TCU’s 17-10 loss to BYU on Saturday left Sonny Dykes talking about the same issue that has been hanging over the Horned Frogs: the offense simply isn’t doing enough.
After the defeat in Fort Worth, TCU dropped to 0-2 in Big 12 play for the first time since 2013. The Horned Frogs have also managed just four touchdowns in three games against power conference opponents this season, a number that tells the story as plainly as the final score.
“Obviously we’ve got to play better. That’s the biggest thing, is we’ve got to be able to score points.
I think we wasted a really impressive defensive performance tonight. I thought our guys played incredibly hard, obviously they played well enough for us to win the game.
We’ve got to continue to get better offensively,” Dykes told reporters postgame.
TCU’s defense gave the Horned Frogs a real shot. BYU, usually dangerous through the air, was held to 17 points and just 62 passing yards. But the night belonged to a TCU offense that never found enough answers.
“I thought we certainly played our best tonight,” Dykes said. “(BYU)’s a good football team, a good offensive team.
I thought we played incredibly hard on offense, defense and special teams across the board. We’ve got to be able to score more points, but defensively, I thought we certainly played well enough to have a chance to win the game.”
BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier didn’t have his cleanest passing outing, but he helped drive the Cougars’ ground game, which finished with more than 150 rushing yards. Bachmeier added 66 yards and two touchdowns on the ground himself.
“You’ve got to give their quarterback credit,” Dykes said. “He’s a very good football player, he kind of took over the game when they needed him to, and that’s what great players do. He’s a special guy, you know, he made some really big-time plays.”
The Cougars also made life difficult for TCU up front. BYU recorded an interception, held the Horned Frogs to less than 2.5 yards per carry and piled up four sacks, with its pass rush creating the biggest problems.
“(BYU is a) good pass rushing team,“ Dykes said. ”...
We were working so hard to stay out of those third downs and long. They’re going to get you.
I mean, they’ve gotten people all year when you get into those situations.
“There’s a couple of times I felt like we could have gotten rid of the ball and we didn’t, so we’ve got to learn from that and get rid of the ball in those situations.”
Dykes, who went 18-8 between 2024-25 and took TCU to the national championship game in 2022, now finds himself under mounting pressure. TCU has a bye this week before returning to face Baylor on Oct. 17, and the path forward looks simple enough: the offense has to start producing.
“We’re just not scoring points right now, we’ve got to figure out how to do it,” Dykes said. “We’ll sit down, take a look at everything we’re doing obviously and find ways to improve, because we’ve got to score more than one touchdown a game.”
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