Eddie Nuñez On the Push To Fill UH’s Football Stadium, Calling For a Big Monday Home Game This Season and TDECU Stadium Upgrades

Bun B and The Mayor have both made personal public pitches. The nation’s No. 1 rated freshman quarterback Keisean Henderson took the mic and urged the students to come out at Cage Rage. The University of Houston’s offered flash ticket sales for as low as $23. Willie Fritz, Conner Weigman and company have certainly more than done their part, with UH football having taken the fast track to being a legitimate Big 12 contender.

Every effort’s been made to draw as many fans as possible to the opener of one of Houston football’s most anticipated seasons in years. But nothing’s guaranteed in college sports these days and UH athletic director Eddie Nuñez knows better than to make it all about one game. Instead it’s about building on the momentum Fritz’s football program and the athletic department’s gameday operations both had going at the end of last season

“We’ve put more of an emphasis on the whole fan experience,” Nuñez tells PaperCity. “And every game’s going to have kind of its own fan experience. We try to set the standards of what our expectations are. But when you think of an afternoon game, it’s going to be a little bit different than a night game.

“From the standpoint we can do a lot more things when it’s a night game — from fireworks, to things where we can probably use the video boards more as well. We can do those. We can do it for every game. But the question is: Can we really take it to another level when it comes to a night game vs. an early game? Those factors play a little bit into it. But we’re excited to have a new staff.

“They understand the expectations when it comes to promotions and the fan experience.”

Still, an 11 am season opener on Labor Day weekend is not going to render any type of verdict on what UH’s home football crowds will be like this season. While it made for buzzy social media fodder and jokes, the underwhelming crowd that No. 14 USC drew to its home opener last Saturday did not surprise anyone who works in athletic administration in 2026.

USC’s crowd issues are more common than not in college sports these days. Especially in cities that are not typical college towns. Yes, Texas Tech football coach Joey McGuire mocked USC’s home crowd while predicting that Texas Tech’s own opening game against an uninspiring Abilene Christian program would be packed.

But that’s like the astronauts stuck on a space station congratulating themselves for all coming to dinner. Arguably the second biggest event going on in Lubbock this Saturday night will be a community theater Wicked sing along at Buddy Holly Hall. What else are you going to do in Lubbock but go the Texas Tech football game? Los Angeles and Houston present some different equations — and competing events.

Texas Tech will also benefit from playing a night game in Week One.

Speaking of night games, Nuñez has been in contact with the Big 12 office to make the case that UH deserves more conference night games at home this football season, with that bit of campaigning starting in the middle of last season. The Houston AD also tells PaperCity for the first time that UH officials have pushed the idea Kelvin Sampson’s beyond nationally elite basketball program deserves a Big Monday home game or two this upcoming season. And more Saturday Big 12 home games.

Sampson’s Cougars played on Big Monday twice last season, but they inexplicably were both on the road.

“I expressed to (the Big 12 office) the importance of it for us to be able to do it at home,” Nuñez tells PaperCity. “Our team has earned it. It’s great that yes, when we go play some of our league opponents we are their biggest matchup, and that’s wonderful and TV’s picking it up. But at the same time we’re playing some of these teams at home, so why aren’t we being considered for that?

“The commissioner and the conference office understand and it’s a balancing act. We get it. This is not us on an island by ourselves. This is them trying to balance it out as much as possible — and sometimes it’s not a perfect science. But we have to make sure that’s kept on the top of the priorities.”

“I expressed to (the Big 12 office) the importance of it for us to be able to do (Big Monday) at home. Our team has earned it. It’s great that yes, when we go play some of our league opponents we are their biggest matchup, and that’s wonderful and TV’s picking it up. But at the same time we’re playing some of these teams at home, so why aren’t we being considered for that?” — UH athletic director Eddie Nuñez 

UH Football Stadium Upgrades

Making UH football games even more of an event is behind the changes Nuñez and his revamped athletic department team are putting in for this season. These changes include ending student tailgating a half hour before kickoff (which is 11:07 am this Saturday, September 5) to encourage and allow students to get to their seats earlier. All the students are being moved to the 100 Level as well, bringing their enthusiasm closer to the field.

Having a DJ for the games is becoming a permanent thing too. Along with making the team running out of the tunnel onto the field before the game more dramatic with more effects than the typical fire shooting off.

Upgrading all the food — not just the Space City Franks offering seven different varieties of specialty hot dogs, Hugo Ortega’s Mexican street eats restaurant Urbe and a new Ninfa’s Cantina moving into the main concourse level, but a suites’ food transformation as well — is another part of the equation.

“I’m an executive chef at heart,” says Steven Gary, the Houston Athletics food and beverage general manager who’s worked for three NFL teams and two NHL teams, and did the food at the Super Bowl in New York in 2014. “I speak chef with chef. So he and I took a really hard look at all the catering menus, the suites’ menus. Everything is upgraded significantly.”

Having Fritz’s team ranked in the Top 25 going into the season, only the fourth time UH football can say that since 1991, is the biggest upgrade deserving of a more crowded TDECU Stadium on the regular.

“The impact of having those rankings and everything else being discussed or talked about before the season, really what it’s doing is elevating the whole program and institution,” Nuñez says. “. . . It continues to show not just our conference peers, but all of college football, is we’ve got the ability to be great at the University of Houston.

“We’ve shown it. And we’re continuing to show it.”

The season opener is another chance to show the progress off the field, but it’s not the deciding exam.