The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Head Coach Willie Fritz Talks Upcoming Match Up vs Red Raiders

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

Head Coach Willie Fritz Talks Upcoming Match Up vs Red Raiders

131 on Sports Talk 790. Let's spend 10 call in minutes with the head football coach of our Houston Cougars 4 and O after an impressive win against Oregon State. Willie Fritz with us on the show. Willie, thanks as always for joining us. Congratulations on the great start. Congratulations on having a little downtime. But let me ask you this.

What changed? First half, probably not to your satisfaction. Late fourth quarter, the charge came through. Does special teams make that kind of difference to get the positivity going on both sides of the football, especially when you're down late in the game? Yeah, I had a couple big block field goals. Those are hard to get. You know, we knew they had, they've been having some trouble with their snap, hold kick mechanism.

And, you know, Will James and LaTrell McCutcheon, you know, really the second one that Will James got. There might have been three or four guys. Had a chance to get it, but they really came up big. And then, you know, we played really well in the second quarter, you know, offensively. We just didn't get the points. We think we had the ball first and goal on the one-yard line twice. And, you know, I had to kick a field goal out of it. It hurt us in the second quarter, you know, a couple big plays defensively,

which we hadn't given up much of. But the only thing, I was just proud of the guys is that we hung in there. Everybody's believing on the sideline. made a few adjustments and we're able to pull the game out. You know, you go on the road, it's tough. All games are tough, but particularly when you go that far on the road. So I'm proud of the fellas. Well, when you talk about adjustments,

are we dialing up or dialing back offensively and defensively? Are there such terms? Will you go to your coordinator and say, hey, let's throw a few more blitzes at them? Will you go to your coordinator on the offensive side and say, hey, why don't we go a little more up-tempo? what are the little subtleties that maybe we don't know about, just watching the game that you could definitely tell

there was a momentum shift in that game because of the special teams and because things got more fluid on the offensive side of the football? Well, you know, you changed tempos. We wanted to do that in the first half, but we weren't getting first down. So it's hard to sustain a drive when you don't get first down. So do a good job with uptempo. And, you know, it allows you throw the ball a little bit more.

That can't substitute. You know, do a little better job with past protection most of the time when that's the case. You know, but the main thing is, hey, here's what we've been doing. Here's how we've gotten hurt with it. Here's something we haven't done yet. This is something that we think can be beneficial for us and, you know, make those adjustments on the sideline and then go with it. You know, we just started off slow. Unfortunately, you know, we just, we have an opener, so we call them, script.

And we've gone over those in great detail. and they lined up like we thought they were going to line up, or we just didn't execute the way we needed to. Kept them in the game, got them ahead, got them confidence. And then we started playing a lot of cleaner, particularly in the fourth quarter. I know that it was a non-conference game, but can that build momentum? Because most teams are down 14, fourth quarter,

you're thinking about the long trip, you're thinking about the late night, and, you know, it just wasn't our day. Was there anything you had to? say? Was there a beyond the special teams? Did you know, hey, we got this. If we can get this game to overtime, we got a chance to win this thing.

Yeah, that was, you know, there at the very end, you know, there's always score to get within seven. The analytics would have told you to, you know, go for two. That way you kick the extra point. You make it, get the extra points. You win the game. You don't get it. You got another chance to go for two.

I just felt like we get the game in overtime. And with our kicker, you know, field goal kicker in particular, we were going to have a great chance to win the game. So we kind of went against the book in that point in time. And, you know, we got the big 50-yard touchdown reception. You know, I almost kicked myself in the butt. You know, there at the end with calling some timeouts and we had them backed up. You know, we could have gotten to punt and had about 50 seconds on the clock. But unfortunately, we had to make it a little bit more of a nail-buck.

situation than we wanted to. So this Red Rader team coming in is also 4-0. No surprise you, Willie. You follow college football, especially Texas football, for a long time. They're at 573 total yards of offense per game. But it's their defense that I think is probably something that we're not used to. That Red Rader squad on that side of the football is playing some excellent football right now. Yeah, they're doing a good job.

They're very, very, very talented, without question. And they're very well coached. offense, defense, kicking game. You know, it's a very well-coached team. We're going to have to do a super job from the beginning of the game to the end of the game on Saturday night. It can be very important. We've got to play four quarters.

You know, this last week was the first game that we've been minus the turnover takeaway margin. We're minus one. We need to be plus one. We need to be plus two. We got to, you know, play up to our, the best we can play. It's going to be important when you play quality opponent like Texas Tech. So, you know, we've talked to our kids about that and had a good week of practice and looking forward to the

challenge Saturday night. You spend time focusing on a starting quarterback, obviously. You'll spend a little bit time, I'm assuming, during practices on the backup, but not very much. How do you do it when you've seen two quarterbacks with some good amount of game tape on what Texas Tech has shown them so far this year? I don't think. there's a whole lot of difference between the two guys, you know, they're going to run their offense. You know, we've actually gone back and looked a little bit of the offense, you know, the offense coordinator did at Texas State.

He was the offensive coordinator there last year. And I did a good job there. And a lot of similarities, what he did there with what they're doing. Texas Tech, it's the style of offense that they run. And, you know, the quarterbacks are going to pretty much, you know, run that offense. You're not going to get one guy's going to be primarily a runner and the other guy primarily a passer. So we just got to be smart with, you know, personnel groupings, formations, splits, you know, down in distance tendencies, you know, and then try to make the very best call

based on all those different things. So if you had a chance to, and look, you'll win a game by one point if it's 47 to 45 or you'll win a game at 14 to 13, If it goes the Cougars way, which hopefully it does, how do you see this thing turning out? You're assuming I'm, you know, low turnover side on yours side, maybe grabbing one away from them. What other keys and tangibles could you anticipate for your squad if you're going to pull off this victory on Saturday night?

Well, you're correct. We'll take it either way that you perceive it. Yeah. But, you know, we talk all the time about the plan to win. And the number one component in the plan to win for us is, you know, turnover takeaway margin. You know, if we can, I mean plus a turnover takeaway margin, is going to give us a great opportunity to be successful.

And I think we've got to do a good job with, you know, the run game, you know, running the ball successfully, stop them from running, you know, and make a team one-dimensional. You know, running the ball allows you to be two-dimensional, I think. And, you know, you don't allow a team to run the ball and makes them one-dimensional. I have to throw it every down. You've got some calls that are going to be in your favor. Kicking game, I think, is going to be important.

And we talked about, you know, one of the special teams. And, you know, the thing I was disappointed last week, we talked about Cougu don't beat the Cougs all the time. We had way too many penalties. You know, we had 10 penalties. I think they accepted eight of them. Three of the penalties are pre-snap, you know, or self-inflicted wounds.

So we've got to play a much cleaner game. Does time of possession mean a whole lot to you? Because I've watched plenty of games where teams will be on the field, nine minutes and only score a field goal. And then sometimes you're on the field for a minute and a half. and you go 80 yards and four plays. Is that a factor in your mind in terms of keeping that prolific offense off the field? Yeah, that certainly helps you.

But you've got to be able to run the ball and, you know, control the game with short passes and all those kind of things. You know, if you're on the field offensively, you're playing really good defense. You know, they're not doing anything to you. So, you know, you've got to see how the game happens. You know, we'll take a touchdown, whether it's a – a one-play drive or a 12-play drive. But, you know, control the clock really, you know,

gives you to leg up with not having to defend a potent offense like they have. Willie, thank you for the time, as always. Congratulations on the late-night win. You'll be in a normal spot at 6 o'clock. You'll be wearing the Royal Blue, the Houston uniforms. It should be a great crowd, great atmosphere, and I hope the kids enjoy the experience. Well, thank you very much.

Go Coogs. Thank you, Willie. Appreciate it. Willie Fritz, joining us University of Houston Football Coach with us here. at 141 on Sports Talk 790.