Sonny Dykes rips Josh Hoover but Curt Cignetti may get last laugh

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Watch the video. There’s so much going on here, I’m not sure where the thread begins and ends. 

First, there’s TCU coach Sonny Dykes intentionally driving a fully-loaded bus over former quarterback Josh Hoover’s three seasons in Fort Worth ― three months after he left for defending national champion Indiana.  

Which begs the question: If it was so bad, why did Dykes stick with Hoover through a 19-12 record as the starter?

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Then there’s the player movement element to this story, of which Dykes clearly isn’t a fan. You don’t say in December that you had a friendly conversation with Hoover when he called and said he was entering the transfer portal — and that you wished him well — and then take a blow torch to anything moving in the aftermath. 

“Stats are stats, and I think, for us, Josh started 31 games here as a quarterback,” Dykes said. “And we turned the ball over 42 —”

Dykes stopped mid-thought and corrected himself, veering far from the undeniable coaching mandate of we not me — and directly into the dirty ditch of it’s all on him.

“And he turned the ball over 42 times in 31 starts,” Dykes said.

Finally, we have the Cigs element of this story. The greatest factor of all. 

Couple of quick things about Indiana coach Curt Cignetti and Dykes’ brutally honest — and obviously angry and disappointed — assessment of Hoover’s transfer. 

1. Cigs doesn’t care what anyone thinks.

2. He has the receipts to prove it.

So while Dykes’ underdog TCU team lost by 58 to Georgia in the 2022 national championship game, Cignetti’s underdog Indiana team won the whole dang thing in January. 

Did it with a transfer quarterback who threw 16 touchdown passes in his third season at California, and then had 41 in the Hoosiers’ national title run.

Cignetti has had two transfer quarterbacks in two seasons at Indiana, and in the season prior to their arrival in Bloomington, they combined to throw for 27 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. 

In their only season with Cignetti, Kurtis Rourke (2024) and Fernando Mendoza (2025) combined to throw 70 touchdown passes and 11 interceptions. And won 27 of 29 games. 

So yeah, I don’t think Cigs is concerned about those 33 interceptions and nine fumbles lost from Hoover in three seasons at TCU. Nor do I think Dykes was.   

But just imagine, for a moment, how utterly empty Dykes has become at the thought of investing in a quarterback for three years — only to have him walk away, and get nothing in return. 

No compensatory quarterback selection from the other team’s roster. No free transfer portal extension. No cash buyout.

Just a “So long, been nice knowing you” exit. 

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No wonder Dykes stopped mid-sentence during a spring news conference to let everyone know what TCU was losing and Indiana was gaining. He must have been holding onto that zinger of a line for weeks. 

Before Hoover’s quick escape from TCU in mid-December, the passing game was a three-pronged process. The offensive line must protect, the receivers must gain separation and catch the ball, the quarterback must throw on time and with anticipation. 

It what every coach stresses over and over to his team and to the media when too much is made about a quarterback’s struggles. If one of those three phases breaks down, the passing game breaks down. 

Dykes went from one for all and all for one, to it’s all on Hoover. it’s petty and petulant, and I don’t really have a problem with it.

It’s a new world for players, a wide-open market of teams flush with cash and big championship dreams. Just like coaching markets every single offseason. 

Players and coaches — and to a greater extent, universities — have made their beds, there’s no turning back now. They’re not going to sit in a room and agree this thing has gone too far, and that while coaches and universities had the upper hand for 150 years, the course correction was as bad and maybe worse. 

They won’t do that because they’re not forced to. They’re not forced, by contractual agreement — a collective bargaining agreement — to find a way out of this mess.

So the answer is embrace chaotic change, or get left behind.

You have to give Cigs credit, he knows what he’s looking for amid the chaos, and hasn’t strayed from the formula. Rourke started the better part of four seasons at Ohio, and Mendoza spent three seasons at Cal and started two.

Hoover’s three seasons fit perfectly with Cignetti’s plan. So do his 9,629 career yards and 71 touchdown passes. 

The very numbers conveniently left out of the Dykes argument.    

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sonny Dykes takes shot at former QB Josh Hoover, new Indiana starter

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