FRISCO, Texas — TCU football coach Sonny Dykes said Indiana coach Curt Cignetti’s response to his comments about quarterback Josh Hoover was “fair.”
“There’s a lot of truth to what he said,” Dykes told The Athletic on Wednesday at Big 12 Media Days.
Hoover left TCU this offseason and transferred to Indiana, the defending national champions, whose quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, won the Heisman Trophy last December before becoming the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft.
“Numbers are numbers, and stats are stats,” Dykes said during a podcast interview in March. “I think Josh started 31 games here as a quarterback, and we turned the ball over 40 — he turned the ball over 42 times in those 31 starts.”
A week later, Cignetti responded after a practice at Indiana during which he worked with Hoover.
“When Josh got here, he met his two new best friends — great defense and a really good run game — and he was never the same after that,” Cignetti said.
“That’s what I’m trying to do. That’s why we have a new offensive coordinator,” Dykes said Wednesday. “Because we want to run the football and we want to put our quarterback in a less bad situation.”
The Horned Frogs went 9-4 for the second consecutive season in 2025, with Hoover at the helm for both seasons.
Dykes didn’t take issue with Cignetti’s response, but he was frustrated that his comments later in the March interview weren’t as widely spread as the criticism of his former quarterback.
“When your quarterback turns the ball over like that — because I took the heat because of what I said about Josh — but in that same quote that nobody picked up on, I said when your quarterback turns the ball over, it’s really the coaches’ responsibility as much or more than it’s the quarterback’s,” Dykes said.
Harvard transfer Jaden Craig is expected to start at quarterback for the Horned Frogs this fall. Last year, TCU ranked 97th nationally in yards per carry and 62nd in yards per play allowed. Indiana was 16th in yards per play allowed and 19th in yards per carry.
“There’s a million different reasons why he turned it over,” Dykes said Wednesday. “But (Cignetti) was fair. I think (he) was right. When you don’t have to score 50 points to win, it’s a lot easier.”
