The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Victory Over SFA in Season Opener with UH Head Coach Willie Fritz

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Victory Over SFA in Season Opener with UH Head Coach Willie Fritz

Willie Fritz, the head coach of your Houston Cougars, My Houston Cougars, and America's Cougars. Presented to you by our friends, the Joint Chiropractic, the official chiropractor of University of Houston football. Coach Fritz, thanks for the time. Congratulations in the opening night win. What was the beyond the shutout? Shutouts, no matter who the opponent is, tough to find in college football. What else did you love about the performance last Thursday night? Oh, I just, you know, a bunch of it was defensively.

We tackle extremely well for game one. I always worry about that. You don't do a whole lot of live scrimaging and live tackling. You do all sorts of work with, you know, with dummies and agile bags. And you got these big rings that you use. You do a little close proximity tackling as well. But for us to come out and tackle the way we did, you know, after, oh, I guess 25 practices, I was happy.

We only had eight missed tackles. And that's pretty darn good in week one. It felt like your defense, beyond the fact that it was exceptional, not giving up a point. It probably could have a couple of pick sixes along the way. Is that good nature grief from guys dropping balls? Or like, hey, this is fine this week, but we need you to grab those in future games. Yeah, we always talk about winning the turnover, takeaway battle. And, you know, my career as a head coach, we've won 91% of games.

And we've been plus one or better. It's probably the most telling statistic in football. And, you know, we were plus two, which is great. I think in 33 years, the head coach, I've lost one game, and then plus two or better, but I could have been about plus six. We had some drops, and I told the guys, let's start getting greeting. To catch those balls, we had an opportunity to get a fumble recovery, and we messed out as well.

But you're right. We had some opportunities to get a few more picks, and one of them for sure could have been pick six. But guys came on, and we just need to improve on that. It is so interesting for me, Coach, because I saw your team for the first time playing as all of us did. So many different names. And look, that's the portal, that's guys graduating, that's recruits that have come in. Is there still going to be a little while before everybody knows who everybody can do?

Are these non-conference games going to carry more weight because you've got to figure out who is really going to be in your depth chart come conference season? I think you're right. You know, we looked at that, and I told the guys, you're earning playing time, you know, not only in practice, but also in the game. And we've got to figure out as coaches, what do they do well, what do they do not so well, try to keep them away from that. We've got 41 new guys. 21 of them are incoming freshmen. We signed a really good freshman class. I'm really pleased those guys.

I think all of them have an opportunity to be a good player here, University of Houston at some point in time. And then we brought some guys in from the portal also. And we're kind of figuring out what they're doing, you know, as far as in our system, because we're doing things a little different than maybe where they came from. I'll be honest with you. It was fun watching Connor get his feet wet as a Houston Cougar quarterback. But his tight end, and I know he got banged up a couple of times during the game

against the lumberjacks, I can't wait to see his progressions because he looks like a grown-ass man on that football field right now for you. He's a good football player. You know, Tanner Cozel is, you know, he's 6-6, 6, 7. He's about 250. He runs excellent routes, tremendous movement, great length. You know, sometimes the guy's at tall and didn't have real long arms. He's got long arms, which he can kind of catch the ball out in front of him,

away from the defender. Yeah, he's in great shape. He had a little banged up. We decided not to play him anymore at night when the game was in hand. But, you know, he's going to be a very good player for him. If I was to pull aside Connor after the game yesterday or on Thursday and then looked at his tape after maybe the visits you've had with him this week during practice, what would you say was his bright spots and what do you want to see him work on as you get ready for this game against Rice? Well, I think that Conner, like everybody, he was, you know, first game playing in quite a long time and getting into his teammates a little bit. And, you know, that first game, you know, you try to draw it up and I hope you got to.

drawn up like they're going to do it, but it was a little bit different. Some of the looks and coverages and fronts and things like that that they presented to us, I thought for our first game, he did a really nice job, and he's only going to get better. This will help him grow as a quarterback and leader and football player in our program. So, you know, there's a lot of good things to build upon from game one. I was watching so much college football this weekend, as I'm sure you have as well, before you, as you're repairing for the rice game. You know, it's kind of a little bit of a running Joe coach that you can't trust college

kickers. I don't know if it's just a good batch this year, but there were some major kicks made all across the country. You had several kicks made in the game against SFA from field goal perspective to the extra points. Are we now seeing a better crop of place kickers out there? Or are we just doing a better job of evaluating? And because, again, you've got portal and you've got NIL and you've got ways to compensate these young men that you're expecting more from that position maybe than from years past.

Well, you know, I think they're getting better coaching. You know, I think that was kind of like, oh, I guess I don't play golf, but 20, 30 years ago, probably didn't have very many people who could help you with your golf swing. And same thing, a little bit with punters and kickers and snappers. There are some specialist coaches out there that, you know, I know our guy does a really good job. You know, so it's, there's a lot more information and drills and technique and, you know, plant foot too close to, to the ball or whatever the case may be.

And we're in the past, you know, everybody's kind of, all they're worried about it to go through those two uprights out there. How's the only thing anybody could really coach? So, yeah, I think you're, you're right. I've watched a little bit of football this weekend, too, and there's some good kickers out there. There's some good kickoff guys. very many opportunities to get kickoff returns anymore. Guys are kicking it real deep.

So there's been an improvement in that area for sure. Willie, are we sure that Ken Haffield's not running Rice again? They had 55 attempts against Louisiana Lafayette last Saturday. You know, Coach Ables does a really good job with that spread gun, option, attack. You know, I ran that at San Houston State when we had our good run, you know, back in the early 2000s, and then we ran it over at Georgia Southern. And, you know, it's difficult because it's hard for, you know, to prepare for it. You don't get the speed of it and you don't have as many practices to work on it as you'd like.

You know, so we had a lot of success at Davidson. And, you know, the big thing that we've talked to our guys about is, number one, we've got to have our alignment, correct. And you've got to have your eyes on the right thing, what's your king on that particular play. because you start looking at other places. You can have some problems because it is an assignment football. They've got to have somebody on the tie. You've got to have somebody on the quarterback.

You've got to have somebody on the pitch. Is there any benefit to playing rice and that style right now? I mean, is there anybody else on the calendar this year that's going to pose that? And if the answer is no to that, that's a lot of work for your young men to learn in a very short period of time so early in the season. Yeah, you know, it's one of the good things is we worked on a little bit. bit during preseason camp. You know, there's some days. We go 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there.

And then also we're able to work on it on Monday. We had Thursday game. We left it and, you know, kind of put that game to bed and then get the kids off Saturday and Sunday and then jumped into it. So really got five, you know, have five days of preparation instead of the four that you usually get. Coach, thanks for the time. As always, congratulations.

I enjoy these road trips that go six miles from campus to campus. It was easy for us to travel with, and we wish you the very best this Saturday against the Alves. Thank you very much. Goon. All right. Thank you. Willie, appreciate. Willie Fritz joining us here.