For a hot second, TCU head coach Sonny Dykes was on the long list of candidates to replace Justin Fuente at Virginia Tech. Dykes worked under Hal Mumme, so he’s part of the original Air Raid lineage and continues the style; as a head coach he’s sandwiched good runs at LA Tech and SMU around a rough go at Cal. He’s talked at length about how he’s approached his different jobs, and out of all the coaches I’ve read and listened about program building, he probably caught my ear more than anyone else.

What he has to say about coaching makes a lot of sense to me, and it also strikes me as relevant to how someone might coach a program like Virginia Tech. If you look at his experiences and compare them to what we saw with Justin Fuente and what we’re seeing with Brent Pry, I think you’ll see some parallels.

The Job is Job #1

Dykes’ biggest point is that understanding and working to the strengths and weaknesses of the job is the most important thing a coach can do. He learned this the hard way in his first season at LA Tech when he chose to emphasize his own strengths as a coach and the strengths of the Louisiana recruiting bed over the school. Dykes had recruiting connections in big high school programs in Dallas and Houston from his years as an assistant at Texas Tech, and he knew the major programs in Louisiana put out big-time talent, so that’s where he put his recruiting focus. Then he invited those big-time recruits who had high schools with 12,000 square-foot weight rooms, and they saw LA Tech’s locker room and the training center that had a grand total of two squat racks, and those recruits politely ended their recruitment.

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