TCU football makes Chris Thomsen, Sonny Dykes hirings official

We learned quite a while ago that TCU football had hired Frog-alum Chris Thomsen the former offensive line coach at Arizona State, as well as Sonny Dykes, the former head coach at Cal, but the moves were made official on Tuesday, as Gary Patterson announced the moves.

Thomsen will take over as the offensive line coach in place of Jarrett Anderson, who will now coach inside receivers, a position vacated when TCU co-Offensive Coordinator Doug Meacham left to become the offensive coordinator at Kansas. Anderson, of course, was the co-OC alongside Rusty Burns prior to Meacham and Cumbie’s arrival before the 2014 season.

Meanwhile, Dykes will serve as an offensive analyst/consultant, meaning that he’ll be allowed in offensive team meetings, but will not be on the sideline during games.

Curtis Luper has also received a title bump, per footballscoop.com, and he’s now the co-OC alongside Sonny Cumbie. It’s a well deserved bump as Luper has done a great job as the running backs coach (a position he will continue to work with). Luper is also widely considered one of the best, if not the best, recruiter on TCU’s staff, and it’s important to keep him in the fold.

Read the full press release from GoFrogs.com:

FORT WORTH, Texas -- TCU head football coach Gary Patterson has announced the staff additions of Chris Thomsen as offensive line coach and Sonny Dykes as an offensive analyst/consultant.

Thomsen is a former Horned Frogs’ football and baseball student-athlete. Jarrett Anderson, who coached the TCU offensive line the last three seasons, will move to inside wide receivers. Dykes was the head coach at Cal the last four seasons.

Thomsen was the assistant head coach and offensive line coach at Arizona State the past four years. During that time, five different linemen for the Sun Devils earned All-Pac 12 recognition. Prior to his arrival in Tempe, he spent the 2012 campaign as the offensive line coach at Texas Tech. He was the interim head coach as the Red Raiders posted a 34-31 win over Minnesota in the 2012 Meineke Car Care Bowl.

Thomsen spent seven seasons (2005-11) as head coach at Abilene Christian, leading the Wildcats to a 51-21 record and six straight trips to the Division II playoffs.

Before becoming the head coach at ACU, Thomsen served two seasons at Central Arkansas as the offensive line coach and recruiting coordinator. He began his coaching career in 1994 as a graduate assistant at ACU, before spending two seasons as the offensive line coach and one as the defensive line coach. He was named the Wildcats’ offensive coordinator in 1998. After spending one season away from football, he got back into coaching in 2001 as the offensive coordinator at Wichita Falls High School before joining Central Arkansas.

Thomsen played football three seasons (1988-90) and baseball one year (1991) at TCU. During his lone season on the diamond for the Horned Frogs, he earned All-Southwest Conference, All-America and TCU Male Athlete of the Year honors after nearly hitting for the triple crown. He led the SWC with 21 home runs and 70 RBIs, while his .373 batting average was second. Thomsen was selected in the 17th round of the Major League Baseball Draft by the Oakland Athletics. Thomsen went on to play two seasons in Oakland's minor league system.

After retiring from baseball, he returned to the college gridiron and played one season at ACU. He was a first-team All-Lone Star Conference tight end for the Wildcats, earning second-team All-America honors. He earned a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice from TCU in December 1993 and received his master's in secondary education from ACU in 2000.

Prior to his four seasons at Cal, Dykes was the head coach at Louisiana Tech for three years. He compiled a 22-15 record with the Bulldogs, which included a 2011 Poinsettia Bowl appearance against TCU.

Before becoming a head coach for the first time at Louisiana Tech, Dykes was Arizona’s offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach for three seasons (2007-09) as well as being co-OC and wide receivers coach at Texas Tech (2005-06). He spent seven seasons overall in Lubbock with the first five campaigns as receivers coach.

The son of longtime Texas Tech head football coach Spike Dykes, Sonny Dykes also had coaching stops at Kentucky, Northeast Louisiana (ULM), Navarro College and the high school level.

A 1993 graduate of Texas Tech, he was a three-year letterman in baseball for the Red Raiders.