Dykes sees change as boost for league
New TCU coach expects UH, others will help when UT, OU leave for SEC
SAN ANTONIO — TCU football coach Sonny Dykes remembers the stories about when the University of Houston joined the Southwest Conference in the late 1970s.
“When Houston was added to the Southwest Conference in 1976, I don’t think anybody thought much of Houston, and they won the Southwest Conference championship in their first year in the league,” said Dykes, the son of late former Texas Tech coach Spike Dykes. “That was back when football was even harder to crack into, and the haves and have nots were in some ways even bigger back then.”
After four years at SMU, Dykes is preparing for his first season in Fort Worth. A year from now, he will be reunited with former American Athletic Conference rivals UH, Cincinnati and the University of Central Florida. All three AAC schools, along with BYU, will move to the Big 12 beginning in 2023.
Dykes said the addition of the three AAC schools will provide an immediate boost to the Big 12, which will eventually lose Texas and Oklahoma to the Southeastern Conference.
“Sometimes I think we all — I’m as guilty as anybody — have perceptions of brands,” Dykes said Sunday during an appearance at the Texas High School Coaches Association convention.
“Dove soap has to be better than the stuff Walmart has because it’s Dove. They’ve got doves on the box, and they have commercials. I think it’s the same way in football. Because School A is a bigger school and School A has more alumni and a bigger stadium and had good football teams in the ’50s, School A is supposed to be better than School B and is always supposed to be. I think that’s just not the way it works.”
UH won 12 games last season under coach Dana Holgorsen and is expected to compete this season for a spot in a New Year’s Six bowl. Cincinnati became the first team outside the Power Five to crack the four-team College Football Playoff and is off to a hot recruiting start this summer. BYU is coming off a 10-win season and brings a national brand. UCF has won 10 games or more three times in the past five years and made two New Year’s Six trips.
“If you look at those teams that are going into the Big 12, there are some of those teams that are actually in the Big 12 I can promise you didn’t want to play those four teams,” Dykes said. Dykes pointed to Cincinnati’s 24-13 win at Notre Dame. In recent seasons, UH has posted big victories over notable Power Five schools, including Florida State, Oklahoma, Louisville and Auburn.
“I think — and it’s not an indictment on any teams leaving the league — but if you go back and look at last year’s teams (UH, Cincinnati and BYU) and then you throw Central Florida in there, you can make the argument that those teams are as good as the teams that are leaving,” Dykes said at Big 12 media days. “And certainly, with one of those teams (Cincinnati), they were better (last year than Texas and Oklahoma). And so, you know, that’s the fact, and that’s the way it is. The way you measure success in football is by who wins and who loses.”
Baylor coach Dave Aranda accepted his first full-time coaching job at UH in 2003, just two seasons after the program went 0-11 under Dana Dimel.
“It was a challenge to recruit,” said Aranda, who was the Cougars’ linebackers coach on Art Briles’ staff.
Nearly two decades later, Aranda has seen the makeover of the UH football program.
“I see the stadium now, see the recruiting reach they have now,” Aranda said. “You can see how competitive they are now.”
With Power Five membership, Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said, comes the spoils.
“It lets (Houston) be in the national championship hunt. A lot different than they were previously,” Fisher said. “And from a financial standpoint, the (TV) network and whatever deals they have, it helps the school, which helps football, which is good.”
And just like back in the day when the SWC disbanded, Dykes said college football in the state of Texas has survived and in some ways flourished.
“I remember when the Southwest Conference broke up, everybody thought that was the demise of college football in this region, and clearly, that has not happened,” Dykes said. “We’ll deal with changes, and it will be a little uncomfortable at times. It’s not ideal in some ways, but at the end of the day, there will be new rivalries that happen, and it will be an opportunity for something new to take place.”