Sonny Dykes on SMU players and fans
Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2022 11:12 pmIt seems TCU has a new football coach this year — who knew? — and he held his weekly press conference Tuesday. Not surprisingly, he was asked about facing his former team.
"I don’t know (all of the SMU players) — they’ve got some new guys that I don’t know. But look, we had a lot of time invested in those players, and they had a lot of time invested win us as coaches, and that’s the way you want it, but I think everybody understands that that’s the way this thing works. You know what I mean? So it goes back to — I think I’ve said this before, but — when a player comes and sees me, and says, you know, “I want to transfer,” my goal is … my objective is for them to have a good opportunity, for them to be successful, whether its them transferring down because they’re not playing, whether it’s transferring because they don’t think it’s a good situation, they’re unhappy … Whatever the case may be, my job is to find the best place for them to go. You don’t like to lose players, but you want what’s best for them, and I think players view coaches the same way. I think it’s the same thing. Everybody has an end game, and everybody has opportunities, and you don’t blame it if a player sees a better opportunity, or if a coach sees the opportunity, and I think the players feel the same way."
(On his knowledge of SMU's players and their knowledge of Dykes and the former SMU coaches on his staff):
We have an advantage: we know (SMU’s) personnel. They have an advantage: they know the scheme. And so I think those advantages will wipe each other out, and at the end of the day, once the ball gets snapped, none of that stuff matters. They don’t care who the coaches are, or what’s going on. Every player on both sides (has) a job to do, and they’re just going to do their job. That’s just the way it is.
(On the possibility of getting booed)
I don’t care. They booed us at Colorado, they’ll boo us when we go to Kansas in a couple of weeks …. I’m sure they’ll boo us on Saturday. There was a time when I noticed those kinds of things, but that’s been 15, 16 years ago, when I was young and that was the first time that happened. Since then, pretty much everything has happened to me, as a coach, and you pretty much learn to not worry about it."
"I don’t know (all of the SMU players) — they’ve got some new guys that I don’t know. But look, we had a lot of time invested in those players, and they had a lot of time invested win us as coaches, and that’s the way you want it, but I think everybody understands that that’s the way this thing works. You know what I mean? So it goes back to — I think I’ve said this before, but — when a player comes and sees me, and says, you know, “I want to transfer,” my goal is … my objective is for them to have a good opportunity, for them to be successful, whether its them transferring down because they’re not playing, whether it’s transferring because they don’t think it’s a good situation, they’re unhappy … Whatever the case may be, my job is to find the best place for them to go. You don’t like to lose players, but you want what’s best for them, and I think players view coaches the same way. I think it’s the same thing. Everybody has an end game, and everybody has opportunities, and you don’t blame it if a player sees a better opportunity, or if a coach sees the opportunity, and I think the players feel the same way."
(On his knowledge of SMU's players and their knowledge of Dykes and the former SMU coaches on his staff):
We have an advantage: we know (SMU’s) personnel. They have an advantage: they know the scheme. And so I think those advantages will wipe each other out, and at the end of the day, once the ball gets snapped, none of that stuff matters. They don’t care who the coaches are, or what’s going on. Every player on both sides (has) a job to do, and they’re just going to do their job. That’s just the way it is.
(On the possibility of getting booed)
I don’t care. They booed us at Colorado, they’ll boo us when we go to Kansas in a couple of weeks …. I’m sure they’ll boo us on Saturday. There was a time when I noticed those kinds of things, but that’s been 15, 16 years ago, when I was young and that was the first time that happened. Since then, pretty much everything has happened to me, as a coach, and you pretty much learn to not worry about it."