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No. 24 TCU Heads West To Face Arizona State In A Friday Night Showdown

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Football

No. 24 TCU (3-0) heads to Tempe, Arizona, to face reigning Big 12 champion Arizona State (3-1) on Friday night at Mountain America Stadium.

NOTING THE HORNED FROGS

  • TCU is in its fourth season under the direction of head coach Sonny Dykes in 2025. The 2022 National Coach of the Year led TCU to more wins in his first three seasons (27) than all but one head coach in program history (Dutch Meyer, 29, 1934-36).
  • Dykes has also led programs at SMU (2018-21), Cal (2013-16), and Louisiana Tech (2010-12). In all four stops, Dykes has led the program to the postseason, making him one of just six active head coaches to take four different schools to a bowl game. The others are Hugh Freeze, Butch Jones, Brian Kelly, Lane Kiffin, and Rich Rodriguez.
  • Directing the TCU offense for his third season as the starting quarterback is redshirt junior Josh Hoover. In his redshirt sophomore campaign, Hoover set TCU's single-season passing record with 3,949 yards on 313-of-471 passing with 27 touchdowns to 11 interceptions. He has thrown 53 touchdown passes in 22 career starts. 
  • Surrounding Hoover will be a new cast of wide receivers as 76 combined starts and 5,464 career receiving yards across their college careers left with the departures of Jack Bech, Savion Williams, and JP Richardson to the NFL.
  • TCU's rushing attack was an offseason focus as the Horned Frogs rushed for just 113.9 yards per game last season, their lowest per game average since 1997 (110.2) and by far the lowest for a Dykes-coached team. Over his tenure as a head coach, Dykes' teams have averaged 158.5 yards per game on the ground with his 2012 Louisiana Tech team posting 227.2 yards per game.
  • Defensively, the Horned Frogs are led by Bud Clark, who led all safeties in college football last season with a 90.1 coverage grade. After logging a career-high 68 tackles last season, Clark opted to return to TCU rather than head to the NFL, and his 12 career interceptions are one shy of cracking the program's top-10 record book (t-8th - Sam Carter, 2012-14; Darrell Lester, 1933-35).
  • TCU returned to the national polls this week for the first time since the 2023 preseason polls. This week's opponent - Arizona State - is right on the Horned Frogs' spiked tail, however, just outside of the top 25 in both major polls.

NOTING THE GAME

  • TCU travels to the desert this week to take on reigning Big 12 champion Arizona State for a Friday night showdown in Tempe.
  • It will be the first meeting of the two programs since 1975, and the first time TCU has played in Arizona since the 2022 CFP Fiesta Bowl against Michigan. It's the first regular season trip to the state since a 2003 trip to #19 Arizona (W, 13-10)
  • TCU has played on Friday night at least once every season since 2015 (excluding the 2020 COVID-19 season). The Frogs are 7-5 in those games including a 3-3 mark on the road.