Head Coach: Willie Fritz is entering his 2nd season as the head coach of the Cougars with a 4-8 record. This was a rebuilding effort but last season wasn’t without some good moments they crushed TCU on the road and upset Kansas State as their top moments, but Fritz comes with a track record of success at every stop, most recently at Tulane so you can expect them to keep getting better. I can’t finish this section without sharing this picture of Fritz in college at Pittsburgh State.
Program Outlook: Houston is a program with immense potential, we got a glimpse of what they could do when Tom Herman was with the program but that quickly went away. They are in great recruiting territory and are willing to invest to keep growing the program, being in the Big 12 was a huge step as well. The Cougars are looking for this to be the year the program takes off once again.
How does the 2025 Roster look?: Houston ranks 9th in the country returning 68.5% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. They didn’t stop there, Houston brought in a very big and talented portal class. Key players for the Cougars starts with the QB position, Zeon Chriss returns after his mobility provided a spark to the offense late last year but Houston also added a big time transfer in former 5-star Texas A&M QB Connor Weigman. Weigman has shown a good amount of potential prior to last season and it felt like he was in for a big 2024 but he didn’t play as well as expected, perhaps he didn’t fit with the offense. He will get another shot here and he has a great safety net weapon in TE Tanner Kozial, but that’s not all WR Stephon Johnson is back plus they picked up a couple playmakers in Amare Thomas (UAB) and Harvey Broussard III. It gets even better with RB Dean Connors coming over from Rice, he’s a great receiving weapon out of the backfield and Le’Shaun Sanford is back as well. The offensive line returns a couple good pieces but will otherwise be portal heavy. The defense is led up front by a big Dline with Carlos Allen, Brandon Mack plus portal guys Joshua Donald (App State) and Khalil Laufau (Washington State). The Cougars also have stud LBs in Jalen Garner and Louisiana transfer Carmycah Glass. I don’t know where the pass rush will come from with this group but they have clear intentions to shut down the run. The other question mark on defense will be the secondary, while the portal was friendly to the Cougars in most positions, it took away their best players back there and they will be hoping a hodgepodge of portal guys can step in and keep it going.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: Houston has a relatively manageable schedule. Their non-conference is a lot of fun with a regional FCS foe in Stephen F Austin who was 7-5 last year. Then comes the last foreseeable edition of the Bayou Bucket, it is tragic we aren’t getting this regional game annually moving forward. Then Houston gets a road game at Oregon State, their first time playing the Beavers since 1970! Houston’s conference schedule features some challenging road games but they avoid a lot of the top teams in the conference. Another cool element of Houston’s schedule, they play all the other Big 12 Texas teams. Overall this schedule provides an opportunity for Houston to pick up more wins this year.
Final Thoughts: Houston possesses a lot of the pieces to take a step forward this year. They have a great head coach in Willie Fritz and a more experienced roster. It will be intriguing to see how the new coordinators mesh on both sides, I wasn’t expecting a full coordinator refresh after 1 year but clearly Fritz didn’t like what he saw at first, especially on offense where they ranked dead last in RedZone efficiency in 2024 (seriously how do you score a TD on only 8 of your 25 RedZone attempts?) If they mesh well, Houston can absolutely be a dangerous program that’ll enter the competitive Big 12 fray.
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