The chaos of roster-building for Brian Kelly, Billy Napier and first-year coaches in 2022

FORT WORTH, Texas — It’s mid-March, roughly four months since Sonny Dykes made the decision to move across town, stepping up from the Group of 5 at SMU to TCU and the Power 5. He already knew his way around campus, having served as an analyst for the Horned Frogs in 2017, but upon returning, it’s the college football landscape that has changed dramatically.

Dykes has switched jobs a few times now, first becoming a head coach at Louisiana Tech and then Cal, before spending the last four seasons at SMU. Taking over a new program is always challenging, he says, but never more so than now.

“What happens when you get hired is you’re basically on the clock,” he said.

Two weeks after he was introduced, the early signing period began and the vast majority of high school prospects inked their letters of intent. All the while, there was the transfer portal with which to contend. And infiltrating all of that was the money being promised to prospective players in name, image and likeness deals.

But before Dykes could recruit any high school or college player in the portal, he had to attend to his own roster. No one used the term “re-recruitment” a few years ago. Now it’s a necessity for new coaches because every player a coach inherits from the previous staff not only expects to see their new head coach in meetings, Dykes said, they also expect to have a private conversation. Put them off and risk a chunk of the roster exiting via the portal.

“The list of people that you need to talk to gets long,” Dykes said. “It used to be, you talk to the player. Now,…