The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Head Coach Willie Fritz Joins Ahead of Saturdays West Virginia Match Up

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

Head Coach Willie Fritz Joins Ahead of Saturdays West Virginia Match Up

133 on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Matt here with you in Toronto for Rockets and Raptors tonight. It's the first time since 2017. The Cougars went on the road last week and knocked off a top 25 team in Arizona State. And the Cougars enter play this week, number 22 in the Associated Press poll. A lot of that is because of the man that joins us now with the great team he's assembled. It's Willie Fritz with us here on Sports Talk 790 and is presented to you by the joint chiropractic coach. Congratulations. You've had a lot of nice wins in this two-year run,

but how fulfilling was the performance going against an Arizona team that just knocked off Texas Tech the week before? Yeah, really proud of our guys. We, you know, battled through adversity. They played their tails off for four quarters. And, you know, you do it on a road and in front of a, you know, sold-out crowd. It was really good. And all three phases, you know, played well.

Not the whole game, but, you know, bits and pieces. It was enough for us to come out of there with the W. So very proud of the guys. Heavy heart to say the very least with Coach Hester's passing. Take us through, if you don't mind, you told the kids and how'd they progress. And obviously you went right to honoring him right after the victory against ASU. Yeah, you know, I found out, you know, I passed away at 1016 on Saturday morning. I had some people that kind of reached out to me.

And the way Coach Hester was, he told his family, not to say anything until after the game. But he got out, and we had a meeting with the players, and coaches were all there. And we did a good job. It was talking about, you know, Coach Hester stories. He was a really unique individual, and kids all loved him.

And, you know, so we talked about it. And I said, you know, the one thing he'd want us to do is come on and play as hard as we possibly can. and do the best we can. And you guys really handle it in a mature manner and coaches as well. And we're proud to be able to honor them with a big win. And the uniforms will be black for the game here against West Virginia, which is something he loved and will be looking forward to seeing that.

Strength and conditioning coaches have a unique relationship with these kids. They may be sometimes conduit to their position coaches, maybe a buffer between the head coach and the players. They also see them perhaps more than anybody else. You have to really dig down deep when you're assembling a staff, Willie. I don't want to put words in your mouth here, but you have to make sure the right guy is running that side of the program

because it's not so much what they're doing during the course of the season. It's how they're taking care of their bodies and getting ready for the season during the off season. No, it really is. You know, Kurt was the first guy hired when I got here. He was with me at my previous school, did a fantastic, job there. Before he's at Tulane, he was at Louisiana Tech, did a great job there. You know, I just knew I needed to bring him over and, you know, for this job. And, you know,

those guys are around them, you know, year round, you know, we work out five days a week, you know, in the summer and in the spring, you know, work out, you know, two or three times a week during a season. And then he's also out there, you know, during practice and all that kind of stuff. So they do have a very unique relationship with the guys, see them all the time. And you've got to have somebody that's, you know, giving them the correct message. And Kurt certainly did that day in and day out. Willie, to the game again, Connor Wegman looks like you got to beat up pretty bad. You ask him to throw the football.

He does it beautifully. The groundwork, the rushing attempts. I thought not only were well-timed, especially with that 50-yard run early in the contest, but he was very patient in the backfield. Is that something that just came to him, or you've seen him improve when it comes to picking and choosing his battles and what holes to try to go through? Well, he was a really good runner in high school.

He ran quite a bit in high school. Some of it scrambled, some of them designed runs. And at his previous school, he ran the ball well. We went back and looked at tape, and we wanted to get him over here. We looked at that. So he's a dual-threat quarterback. He got very good speed.

you know, 21 miles an hour, which is extremely fast for the quarterback. And, you know, then he has the ability to be a really, really accurate passer. And, you know, so no, it doesn't really surprise us. You know, some games, you don't know what the script's going to be until you get out there. And one of the advantages we had is they were having a hard time with quarterback run. So, you know, we went back to it a few times. And, you know, Connor did a sensational job just running vertical. A lot of times guys want to run east west.

and you can get five yards and they go east-west and they get two yards. He did a really good job of seeing creases and cracks and getting vertical. We sometimes talk about C2 split to get two guys and kind of widen one of them and put your foot in the ground and get in between them and take quite as big a shot as you would if he tried to run over a guy. But he did an excellent job running the ball. He also did an excellent job throwing the ball on Saturday. You never want any of your players to get hurt, but it's a byproduct.

of the sport. Do you say a little extra more of a prayer when it's your quarterback on those runs, and do you tell him perhaps give him different advice as compared to laying down or not trying to get that extra yard because he's afraid maybe that one extra hit may not come out? I mean, that may be the case for any quarterback. But I always know that dual threat guys are always very sensitive because they're so explosive at the same time. They're also probably a little more prone to getting hurt. Yeah, you know, we work on those different things. And you know, you want to fall forward too many times guys are sliding and that's almost more difficult than falling forward plus they make market where you begin the slide and but yeah just like i was talking my c2

split two we're not trying to run over a guy we're trying to run in between two targets and you know hopefully pop out on the other end you take glancing blows instead of head-on hits and uh you know but sometimes you know you got to get first out and uh you know by any means necessary and you know another great thing about Connors, he's a tough guy, and he plays football. And, you know, so, yeah, we don't want to have a whole bunch of hits on the QB. But, you know, every once in a while in the game, that's what it takes to win. You've had two very nice wins against two upper echelon teams in this conference. The obligatory, how do you avoid the letdown against the West Virginia team that's

struggling minor league so far this year? Well, I just, I think our kids understand how important each and every ballgame is. and our goal doesn't change each week. We want to improve and get better. And we want to be on the climb. We don't want to be on the descent down that mountain. And so we're working hard every single day of improving. Luckily, I got a lot of good leaders that are doing a good job of also, you know,

voicing the message that the coaches talk to them about all the time as well. You know, we talk about it on Monday and we watch the game that we just got done playing on Saturday. day we flush it down the toilet and we move on to the next opponent. I don't know if you do it much. I don't know if your kids do it much, but you are in the thick of things in this Big 12. Obviously, running the table will be the easiest way to get to that championship game. Are you doing much standings watching?

Are you looking at scoreboards? Or are you doing what most coaches do, just focus on what's in front of you? I just kind of focus. I probably watch less football than anybody. You know, we stay up here. I get up here real early and leave late. By the time I get home, I really don't care too much about watching football unless I got a buddy's team playing somewhere.

Every once in a while, I'll see a pro game and have one of my former players out there playing. By the way, Marcus Jones has signed a new contract with the Patriots. We're so happy from Marcus. Sure. But, you know, that's, you know, I just, you know, really try to focus on the task and hand. I tell our guys all the time, you know,

You want to be elite. You've got to be able to, you know, focus on, you know, one thing at a time and be the very best you can at it. And you've got to be consistent, your effort. And that's what we try to do all the time. Willie, thanks for the time, as always. Congratulations. Looking forward to catching the game on Saturday. Best of luck against the Mountaineers.

And we'll talk again next week. Thank you. Go Coogs.