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On bench for CFP, thrown into fire amid collapse, TCU QB Josh Hoover ready to be ‘the guy’

The Horned Frogs had volatile ups and downs over the Rockwall-Heath alum’s first two years under center, and now Hoover is on a mission to revive the team.

Josh Hoover’s first season of collegiate football included a cushy view of dominance. His second included — as he described it — a detour. His third includes a plan to revive TCU after a dismal and disappointing follow-up to the National Championship Game run he witnessed two years ago.

It’s a hefty order of events. Hoover, a Rockwall-Heath alum, is thankful for it.

“We had some ups and downs last season,” Hoover said. “I think that’s shaped me to be who I am today.”

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So, about last season: The Horned Frogs, just one season removed from their remarkable undefeated regular season and run to the College Football Playoff, had hoped to execute a build-on-that-momentum kind of year. Instead they went backwards. TCU went 5-7, missed out on bowl eligibility and won just three games in the same Big 12 conference that they’d largely dominated one season prior.

And, about how it molded Hoover: He did not take a meaningful snap at quarterback during the Horned Frogs’ 2022 season but was thrust into action last year after incumbent starter Chandler Morris left the sixth game of TCU’s season at Iowa State with a sprained MCL. Hoover started the final six games, passed for 2,206 yards and 15 touchdowns and was named an Honorable-Mention Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year.

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The Horned Frogs won just two times with him under center.

Ups, downs and detours, oh my.

“Everybody kind of takes a look in the mirror, right?” Hoover said. “And you kind of see, ‘Alright, where did we go wrong? How did we have this drastic change?’ I think it comes down to the character of your team. I think that can be changed, and I think we’ve changed that.”

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Ditto, says Sonny Dykes, who will start his third season as TCU’s coach on Friday against Stanford.

“This is a very, very mature team,” Dykes said Tuesday. “That is typically a good thing. I think last year, I wouldn’t have been able to say that. I was concerned just about some of the maturity and we were going to rely on some guys that maybe hadn’t done it before.”

Hoover is now squarely in the center of that. He said that this year’s roster is unselfish and littered with players who “are not focused on being stars, but they’re focused on being championship.” Hoover, according to Dykes, fit that to a tee and “understands his role” from both a leadership and on-field standpoint.

“He likes it, it’s part of who he is,” Dykes said. “He’s an incredibly consistent person, and I think his performance will mirror that consistency. ... He understands what he needs to do to give us a chance to win; he doesn’t need to go out there and be Brett Favre, he just needs to go out there and manage the game and get the ball to the right guys.”

Texas Christian University head coach Sonny Dykes follows a team practice, on Friday, Aug....
Texas Christian University head coach Sonny Dykes follows a team practice, on Friday, Aug. 9, 2024, Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth. (Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer)

Hoover believes that he’s matured and gained confidence from last fall camp to now. Or, as safety Bud Clark said Tuesday, “he went from being a little pup to being a vet real quick.” His impromptu insertion into a starting role last season helped.

“When you get thrown into the fire, you learn real quick,” Hoover said.

The second-year entry was cooler. The Horned Frogs turned their quarterback room over this offseason with the addition of Vanderbilt transfer Ken Seals and Aledo native Hauss Hejny. Both saw reps when Hoover missed spring practice with an undisclosed injury. Hoover, still, was the presumptive starter.

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“It’s hard to be a starting quarterback in the Big 12, in Division I, big time college football,” Dykes said. “That’s a lot for an 18-22 year-old kid to carry. The great thing about Josh is he’s got really broad shoulders when it comes to that.”

Hoover passed for 9,953 yards and 108 touchdowns in three season’s as Rockwall-Heath’s starter and was considered the No. 33 quarterback recruit in the country according to 247Sports.com. The Horned Frogs and Indiana — which Hoover had initially committed to before a late change of heart — were the only major conference colleges at the time to offer him a scholarship.

He was one of six in a crowded quarterback room in his freshman season at TCU alongside Morris (who began the 2022 season as starter before an injury sidelined him) and Max Duggan, who led the Horned Frogs to the College Football Playoff and earned an invitation to the Heisman Trophy ceremony in New York City.

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“I was never a high recruit,” said Hoover, a three-star prospect in high school. “I was never someone who people really wanted. I always, for some reason, felt in my own heart that I was going to be the guy somewhere, some day.”

In other words: Hoover believes that he has had to prove his value. His program now must as well. The Horned Frogs were picked to finish 10th in the Big 12 preseason media poll. They were tabbed as the No. 17 team in the AP’s preseason rankings before last season, but did not receive a single top-25 vote this year.

“We all feel that we’re going to be a great football team,” Hoover said. “We believe that truly. We do have a chip on our shoulders about what happened in the past. We can’t change what happened last year, but we can sure learn from it and use that to motivate us this year. ... We look at each other, and we’re a bunch of tough guys that were counted out and are ready to prove people wrong.”

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