The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Athletic Director Eddie Nunez Joins To Talk All Things UH Athletics

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

Athletic Director Eddie Nunez Joins to Talk All Things UH Athletics

This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. It is 11.02 on Sports Talk 7.90. The Matt Thomas show with Ross. I'm here in Los Angeles. Last night, the Rockets lost to the Clippers. I'll take on the Lakers on Christmas Day. And then two days after that, it'll be the Texas Bowl inside NRG Stadium for an 815 kick. And to join us to talk about that. And among other things, is the athletic director of the University of Houston. Eddie Nunez. Eddie, thanks for joining us this morning. The number one most important question, is Die Hard a Christmas movie?

Yes or no? I would probably lean on not, but I know a lot of people do because the day it came out and everything else. I'm more of the classics, you know, give me a good Christmas story or something like that. But I am a little disappointed. I thought you would at least have some Christmas music

leading into it or some holiday music, something, you know, going on. oh don't worry we're playing it all year all show long so as soon as you hang up listen to the show between now and two o'clock we'll take care of it hey uh i will i will hey first of all uh i'm so i had it willing on the show yesterday and i just love that man i and look i've been very fortunate with my relationship of the university houston as a student as an alum it's a broadcaster to be around some great coaches i don't know what to say in the words what a truly classy person he is he can coach he can recruit he plays by the rules when the rules constantly change. He talked about yesterday that

all the kids, a lot of the kids are from Texas and Louisiana. Eddie, do you realize it 10 or 15 years ago? We couldn't get kids from Texas and Louisiana because the facilities weren't up to speed and the product was not good and the conference wasn't great. And so it's all coming full circle

now and it's a great time to be a Houston Cougar fan, especially with Coach Fritz running things. Yeah, no, you hit the nail on the head. I mean, he's someone who first of all has seen it at so many different levels but he understands the importance of Texas having spent a lot of his career

here in the state of Texas he understands the importance of the caliber of athletes and if we're able which he is to be able to put all this together with those young men we can have something special and you said it right it's alignment it's aligning everything perfectly

because for us to be able to do it you know being in the big 12 and having success and everything else we know we can win and we can win at a high level here, but you need the right leader and to have somebody who's not just done it at every level in one, but understands that this is bigger than just football. This is bigger than everything else.

It's about the city and everything else. It resonates across the board with all our sports. Eddie, you are on the Texas Bowl committee. I don't know if that was kind of a job that you got because they asked you to or as part of me, I thought of director of responsibilities, but how intriguing was that process, Did you have to take yourself out of some things because of the fact that the Cougars are trying to figure out which bowl game to go to? So, yeah, you know, it's an unusual process.

I was part of the New Mexico Bowl when I was at the University of New Mexico and a little bit different than this one. This one a little bit more hands-on and you're involved and understanding all the details, how the teams are selected and everything else. So, yeah, I had to listen to the good, the bad end, the ugly, why, you know, we would possibly not be someone that they would consider as strong as some others and everything else. And you have to sit there and you have to bite your tongue and you have to understand. Sometimes we put ourselves in a position where those realities are true. But on the other side, it's I also know what we can bring to the table. So I did have an opportunity to present what I felt was important for the group to know.

And as I said before, we wanted to stay in the state of Texas. And we knew that either that possibly going to San Antonio or here. And if the possibility presented itself here, here we were going to be not just all in we wanted that chance to be able to have our fans come and experience the holidays together with us and so interesting experience i was able to say what i needed to say and i'm just glad for for david fletcher and the whole the whole board everybody just giving us a chance well it was nice to see that the bowl ticket allotment was sold very very quickly tickets are still on sale for the game because we want to fill as many seats up as possible What was it like, Eddie, to determine the opponent on that?

Because obviously you're trying to sell the University of Houston, but the SEC connection and trying to figure out, okay, does LSU want to come back to Houston? And, oh, by the way, LSU and Houston are going to open up the 27th season in that same building. Yeah, that was discussed. And part of it was, you know, with the SEC, the way they do their bowl appointments. They basically appoint who goes where.

And so they had conversations, the SEC within themselves, about what teams would be on the possible selection process. When we saw LSU on there, of course, everybody said, we know they'd draw well. I had talked to their AD, who's a dear friend, and he and I spoke, and he said, look, if we have the chance to go there, we're going to go there. Our fans love it. You know, yes, we play you guys in a year later, you know, but it's well worth it, especially as they're transitioning right now with everything else.

and it just really lines up better for them than anything else. So they were really excited to be a part of this. And as I told them, for me, it has another layer to it. But I also understand that we want to make this a sea of red. Like you said, there's plenty of tickets available. We want all our fans to keep going to the NRG to the Texas Bowl website. Get those tickets. Let's make this a sea of red.

Let's make it loud. Let's show not just the city of Houston. but America that cougar football is back and it's not just back for for this year it's back to sustain success for a long time to come any one piece of business do I need to get caught up to speed on private equity or just let you guys handle that at this point listen I think one of the biggest one of the biggest things is a lot of that information that came out was premature and like most news article they wanted to get it out as soon as possible when they heard about it. There's a lot of discussions still happening. Nothing is right at the finish line.

There's, there's different parts of this private equity that may suit well for us, but it's not that big 500 million people read about this or that. You know, there's, we have to make sure that we put our best, you know, the best opportunity for our institution, first and foremost. And borrowing money is sounds good at times, but it's also, we're taking, we're borrowing money. And so we have to understand if that makes sense. If it works for us, is there other ways? Is there companies internally, I understand internally in our city, in our state that might have better understanding of who we are and make it a better opportunity for us?

So we are actively looking at everything with private equity with all those investors and everything else because we have to, we have to do our due diligence. But the one that the bold that was expressed about the conference, excuse me, that one does have some validity, but it's still not anywhere close to the finish line. Last question about that. Is it going to be possible to get 16 schools on the same page when it comes to private equity? Depends on what you're asking for. Not every school needs the loan.

Not every school can do that. Our state has different requirements when it comes to taking loans. And so I don't see it working perfectly. That's what you saw with the Big Ten. and so what happened one of the first iteration of ours. So I would say the likelihood of making one of those things truly possible makes it really hard

because you're dealing with private schools, state schools, different states. There's a lot of factors that go into it. We all want the ability to generate more revenue to help us be great, but it takes a little time. Can I before forget,

I'd love to make sure our fans know. December 26th, Tom's Watch Bar, downtown. We're taking over the Tom's Watch Bar. come on down we're going to have a cougar event there we want all our fans to come out it's it's going to be a 530 and then on the 27th the day of the game of course we have a tailgate there starting at 430 in the blue lot come on out let's make sure that we can do it right for for our coogs but more than anything else thank you for this past year I want to wish everybody a

wonderful holidays and look forward to seeing them at the ball game yes go to the game Saturday night my kids are going i bought tickets yesterday as a matter of fact so the thomas now i've got a rockets game so i won't be able to be there but the thomas family's going to be representing so just go and root the hell against lSU i know you used to work there but i mean it's easy to make fun of tigers oh yeah listen i i love my time there it was great for the family and i but uh there's no love right now that's all about the coogs and let's go and uh take care of business show them who we really are so i'm all i'm all in let's make it happen all right last question the basketball squads all they're doing is running around the country beating up on these top 25 opponents

I love the non-conference scheduling I know that folks would like to see some more home games at fortita center but the world of college basketball works a little bit differently and it's you still at the end of the day are trying to build your resume for the march madness yeah it's it's part of this this new landscape that we're dealing with I will tell you that this is also given us a little bit of of light about what we want to do for the future coach sampson actually mentioned to me about a week ago that we really want to try to do more home and homes with some power opponents at our place, make it impactful, make it desirable. But right now, because of the way the nuances are, we had to take advantage of these games on the road and some teams don't want to come here. But I know he'll have somebody in here

and we look forward to it, but it is part of building the resume. And our guys took care of business against Arkansas and now we're here getting ready for. We've got one more game before conference and hope to see everybody there also on the, 28th in the Furtado Center. Eddie, happy holidays, you

and your family. Thank you for the time and the best of luck on Saturday against those tigers. Sounds great. Thank you.