How a trip to a Dallas Cowboys game changed the life of new TCU DC Andy Avalos

When Andy Avalos and his family planned a trip to Dallas Cowboys’ Dec. 10 game against Philadelphia, he had no idea the trip would help him land at TCU.

Avalos, the former head football coach of Boise State, was fired by his alma mater in November. It was a tough pill to swallow. He was a star linebacker for the Broncos and then coached there for 10 seasons as a position coach, defensive coordinator and eventually, the head coach.

It would’ve been a tough pill to swallow for any coach, but Avalos wanted to make the most of his newfound free time.

“During that process it was a great time to take a couple of weeks and hit pause,” Avalos said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to hit pause.”

With the newfound downtime, Avalos thought what better way to use that than to check in with former players DeMarcus Lawrence and Leighton Vander Esch, who Avalos helped develop before they arrived in Dallas.

As the trip to Texas neared closer, interest in Avalos began to ramp up as numerous college programs wanted to hire him in to coordinate their defenses.

It’s not hard to understand why. He was so coveted. When you look at his track record, which includes a Mountain West Conference championship as a head coach, he has led numerous defenses ranked in the top-20 during his stints as a defensive coordinator at Boise State and Oregon.

While Avalos was sorting through his options and preparing for a vacation, TCU coach Sonny Dykes was still grappling with whether he would retain defensive coordinator Joe Gillespie.

Ask anyone around the TCU program and they’ll tell you how respected Gillespie was in the building. He coordinated a defense that was good enough to reach the national championship game. It was hard, but ultimately Dykes felt he needed to make a change.

Having someone like Avalos on the market also factored into the decision. Dykes said Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops and N.C. State coach Dave Doeren all vouched for Avalos when Dykes leaned on them for advice and insight on possible candidates.

There was also familiarity from Dykes’ Louisiana Tech days when he faced Avalos and the Broncos numerous times competing in the WAC.

“Anytime you start to consider replacing somebody, I think the thing you have to look at is can you get better and can you improve?” Dykes said. “That was something to consider. If I’m going to do this, who is available? In today’s world are they interested?”

Avalos certainly was. He said there were a number of factors that propelled TCU to the top of his list.

“We were able to take the time to piece together what the next opportunity looked like,” Avalos said. “Was it in college? Was it in the NFL? There were some college defensive coordinator positions available, but I really felt good about the fit with Coach Dykes. The vision of the program and the capabilities of this program, the tradition of what this program has been about and the people.

“The coaches, the players, the support staff. That was a big deal and the environment that creates the culture that’s something my family and I wanted to be a part of.”

With mutual interest confirmed, the conversations began to heat up in December as TCU was beginning to put the final touches on its recruiting and transfer portal class.

Dykes didn’t know Avalos would be in town for the Cowboys game, but life can have a funny way of putting us in the right place at the right time.

“It happened really fast,” Dykes said. “When we felt like we were going to reach a decision I reached out and talked to him for a bit and he said ‘Hey look I’m coming up there tomorrow’ and strangely enough he was just coming Vander Esch and those guys play.”

Avalos brought his wife down and a few friends from Boise for the game. After he got that call from Dykes, Avalos had a good feeling that he found his next landing spot.

“It worked out in the last 24 hours where it became a one-way ticket for me,” Avalos said. “Everything happens for a reason. Being in the area, coming for a game, the connection with all the different things that we talked about. What an unbelievable blessing. Coming to the Cowboys game turned into a new, life-changing opportunity.”

Lawrence, speaking with Star-Telegram reporter Clarence Hill, said he thinks TCU is landing a coaching star.

“It’s a great pick-up man,” Lawrence said. “You’re gonna get a dominant force, he’s a smooth guy. I can’t wait to see what (TCU) has in store for next year.

Avalos’ philosophy

Have you ever played the Madden football video game and created your own defensive playbook? If you’re like many, you include every possible defensive formation you can fit so you can be prepared for any situation.

In a sense, that’s how you could describe Avalos. Most defensive coordinators fit neatly into being an odd or even front type of coach schematically, but for Avalos nothing on defense is ever that simple.

“We’re going to be a multiple front defense, we’ve lived in that world for a few years now,” Avalos said. “You’re starting to see that at the college level now and even in the NFL. It’s not always going to be an open book test for the offense. We’ve got to be multiple to create different presentations, so that’s been a big part of what we’ve done. It’s what we did at Oregon and were building at Boise.”

From the 4-2-5 to 2-4-5 and even the 1-5-5, Avalos has been reported as using a little bit of everything including those formations that are used often by NFL teams.

While TCU would occasionally walk down a linebacker to present a four-man front, it’s not an over-exaggeration to say the Horned Frogs remained in the 3-3-5 about 90-95 percent of the time. Dykes wanted to move away from that as the Big 12 continues to change with Texas and Oklahoma departing and Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah arriving this upcoming season.

“It just felt like the league was changing and we wanted to be more multiple in some of the things we do,” Dykes said. “I sat down with Joe a couple of times and talked about my vision and I wasn’t completely sure we had the same vision going forward.”

Dykes said he wanted to be more aggressive on defense and wanted somebody that would be the ‘head coach’ of the defense on the field and with recruiting.

Avalos checked all those boxes and his insight on teaching shed even more light on why he was so coveted by Dykes.

“It comes down to the mentality of the defense, the confidence of the defense,” Avalos said. “Every single year is about development, the mental and physical. How we grow in our knowledge of the game specific to our positions. For me it’s always about development and how we teach.”

Avalos helped develop Lawrence into a two-time first-team All-MWC selection and an eventual second-round pick in the 2014 draft. He saw first hand how Avalos’ style can help players reach their potential.

“He’s more of a if you do your job each and everyday, he’s a player’s coach,” Lawrence said. “If you’re not holding yourself to the standard he sees you at then we got problems. That’s what type of coach you want, somebody that holds you accountable.

“Somebody that can tell you the rights from the wrongs and pat you on the back when you’re doing good. That’s what type of man he is.”

Long way from the big screen

Dykes wanted someone that could maximize the talent on the roster and Avalos’ approach, plus his track record, suggests he’s the right man for the job. Avalos doesn’t just know the game, he played at a high level.

He’s No. 5 all-time in tackles at Boise State and used that experience to climb up in the coaching ranks and also land a movie gig.

That’s right, Avalos has some acting chops as an extra in the 2006 movie Gridiron Gang with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. It’s something he can laugh at now and is a testament to how he’s come.

“That’s been a little while now,” Avalos said with a chuckle. “When I got done playing football there were me and a few other guys and you actually had to go through a combine. We spent the first three months after being done with (college) football on the set of the movie. It was my first job out of college and an experience I will not forget.”

Avalos had one line in the movie, not enough to get any royalties, but he did have a Screen Actor’s Guild card. He would soon start his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Colorado then a defensive line coach at Nebraska-Kearney in 2009-10.

There was another GA stint in Sacramento State before Avalos finally got his shot at his alma mater as a defensive line coach in 2012. The rest is history and as he begins a new chapter in Fort Worth, he reflected on how far his journey has taken him and his family.

“It’s not everyday that you’re able to be in positions we’ve been able to,” Avalos said. “What comes with that is great responsibility. The people around us here are unbelievable and that’s what it’s ultimately about, the people here at TCU.”