TCU coach Sonny Dykes claps back at Nick Saban: ‘We were there and he wasn’t’

Based on recent comments, Nick Saban clearly has some lingering frustrations over his Alabama team not making the College Football Playoff in 2022. On Saturday, TCU coach Sonny Dykes offered a response.

For anyone who may have forgotten, there was no dispute that Georgia and Michigan were going to the CFP in 2022. They were undefeated champions of the SEC and Big Ten, respectively. To round out the playoff, the CFP committee selected Ohio State — whose lone blemish in an 11-1 season was against Michigan — and TCU. The Horned Frogs finished the regular season undefeated but lost the Big 12 Championship Game to Kansas State. The Crimson Tide were the first team left out. They finished that regular season at 10-2, losing to Tennessee by three points and LSU by one.

The now-retired Saban has recently commented on how the 12-team playoff is determined. In those comments, he opened the two-year-old wound, saying his Crimson Tide would have been 13-point favorites against TCU.

During his postgame press conference after his Horned Frogs defeated Arizona on Saturday, Dykes responded.

“Look, we were there,” Dykes said (H/T James Plunkett, HornedFrogBlitz). “We beat Michigan. We played for a national championship. Everybody can say what they want to say. I don’t care. That’s the great thing about it is, it is what it is. It’s in history. I wish we would have played better in that game. We played as well as we could play for 14 weeks. You know what I mean? I’ve never seen a college football team — never coached one, never seen one — play as well as we did for 14 straight weeks. And it’s a shame we didn’t play well for 15. But like I said, I don’t care what anybody says about it. You know — we were there and he wasn’t.”

TCU’s inclusion in the College Football Playoff has become more controversial over the last two years because of what happened against Georgia. The Bulldogs overpowered the Horned Frogs, winning 65-7. By comparison, Georgia narrowly defeated Ohio State in the semifinal. The Bulldogs trailed 38-24 going into the fourth quarter, took the lead with less than a minute to go, then had to sweat out a 50-yard game-winning field goal attempt from Buckeyes kicker Noah Ruggles, which missed.

That said, as Dykes noted, to get blown out by the Bulldogs, his Horned Frogs first had to beat the Wolverines. TCU did that, defeating Michigan 51-45 in that semifinal matchup. And while it was a wild game, the Horned Frogs never trailed and were never even tied with the Wolverines after scoring the game’s first touchdown in the first quarter.

From 2014-2023, the College Football Playoff took four teams. In eight of those years, Alabama was one of the four. If Saban wants to complain about one of the two years his team wasn’t taken — two years after the fact, no less — it’s his right. But it’s not a great look. Dykes’ response was measured and on point.

[ESPN CFB on Instagram, Photo/Video Credit: James Plunkett on X]