Georgia showed TCU football the gap to a national title. Sonny Dykes laid out what’s needed

No amount of free food and drink could entice a TCU fan to re-watch the national championship game, but coach Sonny Dykes dared do what mortals should not.

He sat down, under his own power, and re-watched TCU v. Georgia in the 2022 national title game.

What possibly could anyone gain by watching “65-7” again? Once was more than enough for 50 lifetimes.

“We just didn’t play good; that’s the bottom line,” Dykes said, less than two weeks before the start of the 2023 regular season. “The big thing is you get something out of the experience. I don’t know if you get something out of going back and watching the film.”

You don’t. Even Georgia fans wouldn’t bother re-watching that game.

It was all surreal; watching TCU trot out on the SoFi Stadium field in Los Angeles to play No. 1 Georgia in the national title game in front of the entire world.

However ugly the game was, nothing can ever take away that this program made it to that game.

TCU’s remaining challenge is to build on a season that was nearly perfect. As high as TCU reached last season, re-watching the national title game shows a gap that wasn’t revealed by a final score.

“When you get to that level of football it’s a different animal; it just is,” Dykes said. “When you get to the college football playoff, those teams that are there are built to be there. Look at the staff size at the teams that were in the playoff last year; there were 50 more people than we have, in some cases.

“Those teams are built for those types of runs. You kinda say, ‘Is this overkill?’ And you get in those situations and realize there is a reason for that.”

(Yes, it is overkill, but so is most everything about major college athletics.)

Not one TCU player, coach, fan or administrator was ready for that game. The moment, the stage, the lights, the attention, swallowed the school.

When TCU held a pep rally on the Santa Monica Pier the day before the title game, everyone there was celebrating something they had not won.

It was a collective, “Can you believe we’re here? I can’t believe we’re here. What do we do?”

They know now.

In the last 25 years, TCU has done nearly everything else but win that game.

Since 1998, the Horned Frogs are the best “story” in major college football.

From 1-10 in a middle-tier conference in 1997, to Rose Bowl wins, Fiesta Bowls, Peach Bowls, Big 12 title, Big 12 title games, the college football playoffs, a college football playoff win, an appearance in the national title game.

The only big details missing are a Heisman Trophy, of which TCU has had two finalists, Max Duggan and LaDainian Tomlinson. That national title.

Few programs can boast a resume that extensive.

If TCU is to add to that resume, it has to do it all again. And again. Then again. And again.

Not every single season, but they need to be “around it” consistently.

Reaching the national title game showed Dykes, his team and staff, exactly what is missing. A little bit more. Of everything.

Not a lot - this team did defeat giant-spenders Oklahoma, Texas and Michigan in the same season - but more.

“There is a tremendous commitment from a resource standpoint to those (playoff teams),” Dykes said. “In those situations, they are built for that. They are built for those stretch runs. We have to continue to grow our program; if (a national title) is the expectation for our program, which I think it is, then we’re going to have to keep up.”

Loosely translated, TCU will have to continue to spend a lot of money to expand a program in an arena that has become a professional football league.

If that reality makes you sad or sick that college football has come to this, watch something else.

This is where college football is, and to compete for national titles your favorite program must continually invest millions in paying players, paying coaches, paying staffers, and paying to build new facilities.

It’s madness, and it’s not changing any time soon.

Until the system changes, again, TCU has agreed to play in this arena, and to try to compete to grow the entire university.

TCU has demonstrated it can compete.

TCU has also seen the gap between reaching the national title, and winning it.

“What we want is to be a program that is respected,” Dykes said.

In the last 20 years, TCU’s football team has given the school a positive hook, and identity. In that regard, it is money well spent.

They still want to do more.

“Anybody can have a good year, every now and then,” Dykes said. “We want to be a program that’s consistently in the Top 25. We want to be a program that consistently plays for conference championships. That’s in a conference race in late November. We do those things, we’re going to be in the college football playoff conversation.

“That’s a fair goal for our program.”

If they can do those things, and when/if they do return to the national title game, it won’t be such an overwhelming experience that the prospect of re-watching the game makes you sick.