Willie Fritz’s Houston Football Team Shows It Must Be Taken Seriously Now — Just Making a Bowl Game Isn’t Enough For Conner Weigman, Carlos Allen & Co. Anymore

On a sunny day in Oklahoma, a day in which quarterback Conner Weigman challenged his offensive line (and himself) with a guarantee, a section of male Oklahoma State students hilariously defied the definition of tanning, running back Dean Connors pulled off a unique touchdown double and nose tackle Carlos Allen Jr. continued to prove he’s one of the baddest men in all of college football, Wille Fritz’s team announced itself. This University of Houston squad must be taken seriously now.

With the Cougars taking care of business in Stillwater, rolling over the Cowboys 39-17, surpassing their win total for all of last season in the sixth game of this season, several things are suddenly clear.

Just making a bowl game — a seemingly laudably realistic goal and logical next step in year two of this Fritz rebuild — will no longer be enough. This now 5-1 UH team can do much more than that. These Cougars will be heard in the Big 12, whether the rest of the conference wants to believe it or not. Houston is not one of the four Big 12 teams in the Top 25, but Fritz’s team looks capable of challenging any of them besides Texas Tech, which might be one of the five best teams in the entire country.

Ready or not Fritz’s Fighters are here, pushing for more.

This Houston defense pushed by coordinator Austin Armstrong, Carlos Allen, Latrell McCutchin Sr. and Kentrell Webb is a fiercely prideful group. Webb bristled a little when I asked last week where Texas Tech ranked among the best teams he’s played against at UH, shooting back that those Red Raiders are just another football team like his own.

So you can be sure that Webb and the rest of the defense heard what Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire haughtily declared in the wake of Tech’s power flex win over Houston. McGuire boasted that his offense should have put 60 points up on UH’s defense after his team’s blowout win. That type of bravado is quickly becoming the Texas Tech “brand,” no matter how false it may ring. Truth is Fritz and Armstrong’s defense forced the best team in the Big 12 into taking seven field goal attempts, several after UH’s offense handed Tech the ball deep in the Cougars’ own territory. If it wasn’t for uncharacteristically poor tackling, Houston’s defense might have held Tech to even less.

Oklahoma State’s challenged offense felt the brunt of that leftover frustration. After the Cowboys scored on a trick play with a receiver throwing a deep touchdown pass to a wide open running back and converted a dropped Houston punt attempt into a gift field goal, Armstrong’s unit shut out OSU for a stretch that lasted nearly 38 minutes of game action.

UH’s Disruptor

As usual, Carlos Allen disrupted plenty, with a ferocious sack just part of the havoc he inflicted. The scary part for opponents, one of the reasons to believe UH can do more in the Big 12, is this nimble 300-pound man could just be getting started.

“The good thing about Carlos is he’s getting better every week,” UH defensive line coach Oscar Giles tells PaperCity. “It’s not like he reached his peak yet. As coaches, we all try to push him. Coach Armstrong, myself, Coach Fritz. Everybody’s trying to push him to get the best out of him. I still think there’s more in there.

“But what he’s given us so far is pretty good.”

Giles does not like to compare players, feeling its disrespectful to the NFL standouts he’s coached in the past, but plenty of others are already invoking the name Ed Oliver when it comes to Allen.

How hard Allen plays, how much he pours himself into games now, makes his potential nearly limitless. The leader of UH’s offense, the quarterback pace setter this Houston program’s lacked for several years, is equally tough.

This season isn’t about the future anymore. Not after taking care of business like a UH football team hasn’t in a good while, arguably since that 12-2 2021 season. Not at 5-1. Not after this toughness flex in Stillwater.

Just one week after getting concussed and knocked out of another college football game, Conner Weigman returns in full challenge mode. That’s what he does when he stalks over to his offensive linemen after a few disappointing early series and declares/demands “Every time we touch it, we score,” as detailed by TNT, which already has the best Big 12 football game production.

Weigman is challenging himself too with this guarantee, and he delivers. To the tune of a 29-0 UH run in which the Weigman offense scores on six of seven possessions, with the lone non-score coming on drive at the end of the first half when a Weigman fourth down pass into the end zone drops incomplete with two seconds left.

“He’s tough,” David Raffield, Weigman’s former coach at Bridgeland High School, tells PaperCity. “He can go through it. He’s seen it all in college and that gives him an edge.”

Ready or not, Fritz’s Fighters are here, pushing for more.

Ballers Who Know Ball

Whether it’s new lifeline wide receiver Amare Thomas catching seven passes for 157 yards or Allen going full bull, this Houston roster is marked by smaller school finds who Fritz and his staff correctly identified as Power 4 difference makers. The talent jump in this program is real, even before next season’s historic recruiting class gets to the Third Ward.

Take Thomas, whose precise route running and tendency to catch everything at UAB drew the eyes of Fritz’s talent evaluators.

“He’s just a good football player that understands the game,” UH offensive coordinator Slade Nagle tells PaperCity. “He has a natural feel for things. He has strength and uses it great on contested balls. He’s just a player.”

“The good thing about Carlos is he’s getting better every week. It’s not like he reached his peak yet.” — UH defensive line coach Oscar Giles

This particular Fritz second-year jump season is being fueled by targeted smart decisions. Evaluating players, both those on your roster and potential additions in the portal and otherwise, is the foundation of any bedrocked program. Willie Fritz and his staff’s success in evaluation after evaluation may be the most encouraging sign for the longterm future.

But this season isn’t about the future anymore. Not after taking care of business like a UH football team hasn’t in a good while, arguably since that 12-2 2021 season. Not at 5-1. Not after this toughness flex in Stillwater.

Ready or not, Fritz’s Fighters are here, pushing for more. And who wouldn’t want to be ready for this?