Inside UH’s Real Texas Bowl Boost — Why Tilman Fertitta, Eddie Nuñez, Tanner Koziol & Forever Coogs Already See the Difference

Tanner Koziol cannot count how many people come up to him to tell him what the Texas Bowl win means to them, raving over his guts-out fourth down catch, wishing he could play another season for Willie Fritz’s University of Houston program. The Texas Bowl may be a few days old, but the buzz is still going strong. Koziol never expected to be introduced on the scoreboard screen and cheered at a UH basketball game. But there he is on a Monday night, living in a new University of Houston world.

That Texas Bowl triumph — in the most well-attended non-playoff game this entire bowl season so far — is more than a win. It’s a UH moment.

And whether you’re a college kid from the suburbs of Chicago who only got to play one season in Fritz’s program or the United States Ambassador to Italy who remains as connected and invested in his school as ever, you can see it.

“I think it’s a great springboard for next season,” Tilman Fertitta tells PaperCity. “To win 10 games and now the portal’s opening up (on Friday). I think we’re only going to. . . This is what we expect now.”

Buzzing into 2026. No stopping now.

University of Houston athletic director Eddie Nuñez can still feel the excitement days later. He hears it from the University of Houston fans filing in to the Fertitta Center to watch Kelvin Sampson’s national championship contender move to 12-1, fans who are now daring to dream this can happen in football too. “I think what really resonates with everybody is the culture Willie’s building here is huge,” Nuñez tells PaperCity over the din of the Fertitta Center crowd. “More than anything else is that buy in from everybody. . .

“There’s one now,” Nuñez says, clapping as Koziol is introduced to a roar from the crowd. “You have a guy who came here this year who made an impact. Who made an impact off and on the field. That’s what being part of Houston football is about now. You see someone like Tanner really embrace it. You see our guys diving all over the basketball court all the time. When Coach (Sampson) brings in someone like Milos (Uzan), how he comes into the culture.

“That’s what happens at this university.”

Houston athletics’ brand being it is has the hardest playing and toughest teams in the land might not be flashy or sexy. But the most enduring things seldom are. The hope — and the growing belief — is that Willie Fritz is building something rock solid enough to last. This is one of the reasons this 10-3 season in year two of Fritz feels so different from that 12-2 season in year three of Dana Holgorsen.

“I think it’s a great springboard for next season. To win 10 games and now the portal’s opening up (on Friday). I think we’re only going to. . . This is what we expect now.” — Tilman Fertitta

The Fritz Factor

Fritz keeps drawing more and more people in, widening the tent, making it about everyone but him. There are the potential program-shifting 2026 recruiting class early enrollees — the No. 1 ranked high school quarterback in America in Keisean Henderson and four star three-way force Paris Melvin Jr. included — celebrating on the sidelines as the final seconds tick off the clock in that 38-35 Texas Bowl win over LSU.

“Yeah, they were loving it,” Fritz says. “I guess they only know one and O. They’re going to think it’s easy.”

Fritz laughs. It’s never easy. This UH team comes back from down 14-0 to LSU, showing the fight this group that came together so quickly, with so many transfers in impact roles, showed all season. Fritz fittingly brought up Kurt Hester, the strength coach whose strength came to define these 2025 Coogs as he courageously fought cancer with a relentless fierceness until it tragically took his life on the morning of UH’s win at Arizona State, in the postgame locker room celebration.

“We’re all blessed that we were around him,” Fritz told his team. “Everybody understand me? That’s very, very fortunate.”

Unbreakable. Bonded forever.

Koziol, the transfer from Ball State, and Dean Connors, the running back who runs like he’s trying to break through a brick wall every carry he gets; a transfer from Rice, both only got one season at UH. But they leave the Third Ward as Forever Coogs, lifetime Fritz devotees and future buddies for life. Koziol tells PaperCity that Connors and he are going to train for the NFL Draft together in Austin, part of a group the tight end’s agent set up with coaching. Doing it without Connors just wouldn’t seem right. They made the biggest plays on UH’s game-sealing drive in the bowl game — Koziol selling out, putting his body on the line to fight for a catch on fourth down, Connors breaking free for the 20-yard touchdown run that gave Fritz’s team the cushion it needed, legs churning, his buddy Koziol delivering a key block.

“We kind of have similar stories,” Koziol says. “Our senior year transferring into a new place. Being new and getting into the culture real fast. Just being on the same page. Seniors, it was just really fun to share stories from previous years.

“It will be fun to continue this journey together.”

The Willie Fritz UH journey is just getting started in many ways. Fritz doled out a lot hugs after his University of Houston program’s Texas Bowl win. He pulls Austin Armstrong, the defensive coordinator he chose to believe in after Florida took away Armstrong’s play-calling duties, into an over-the-shoulder embrace. He jumps around with UH billionaire believer Tilman Fertitta and chancellor Renu Khator in a combo hug. He pulls MVP quarterback Conner Weigman close and tells him how proud he is of him. And that’s just the start of the Fritz hug wave.

This isn’t Jim Valvano looking for anybody to hug in shock after that upset of Hakeem Olajuwon’s Cougars in that infamous 1983 national championship game. Willie Fritz very much expected to be here. To beat LSU. And keep winning. He first verbalized his goal of winning a national championship at Houston to PaperCity days before the Texas Bowl, when he arrived at the team hotel, the same hotel he’s stayed at for Texas High Schook Football Coaches Association meetings.

UH football coach Willie Fritz to ⁦@PaperCityMag⁩ on verbalizing his goal to win a national championship at Houston; “It’s possible. There’s not a better recruiting area in the nation.. We’ve got dynamite facilities. It’s a goal for us and I think it’s a realistic goal.” pic.twitter.com/4lnxkfd5GO

— Chris Baldwin (@ChrisYBaldwin) December 24, 2025

And it’s not just the current Coogs who are being drawn more and more in. There are Tank Dell and Ajani Carter on the UH sideline for the Texas Bowl, receiving love from the UH fans who make NRG Stadium much more red than purple. Carter only played one season for Fritz and Houston too, turning that into a special teams role with the hometown Texans. But he looks as pumped as anyone in the stadium after UH’s bowl win, lingering on the confetti-strewn field to all the current players are back in the locker room.

“Willie Fritz, that’s my guy,” Carter tells PaperCity. “He calls me. He tells me anytime I need something, he just say ‘Call me.’ Anything. That’s my guy. I love him to death. . .

“It feels good because I go back to my (Texans) locker room and I can brag to my teammates who played for LSU.”

Buzzing into 2026. No stopping now.

“It’s amazing,” Tilman Fertitta tells PaperCity. “There are like 35,000, 40,000 Houston fans here (at the Texas Bowl). It was a great turnout. Now we need to get them on campus next year.”

Fritz thinks about the same thing when his postgame press conference is over. This Houston coach challenges himself to do a better job of recruiting fans, something many college football coaches would curtly dismiss as not their problem.

When I asked University of Houston coach Willie Fritz about all the Cougar fans at the Texas Bowl, he quickly shifted to his desire to do more to build on that. “That’s one of the things that I need to do a better job of — is going out and recruiting fans,” Fritz says. “And… pic.twitter.com/JgSV0ci6KD

— Chris Baldwin (@ChrisYBaldwin) December 28, 2025

Even a Power 4 football program only gets so many moments. You need to seize on them when they arrive, expected or not. Everyone around this UH football program seems to understand this is one of those rare potential shifting moments.

“We’re trying to raise the standards of everything we’re doing here,” Nuñez tells PaperCity, acknowledging how much effort UH’s administration put into making sure that Houston red crowd wowed at the Texas Bowl. “We need our fan base to show up. We knew they could. And they have in the past. It means the world.

“It shows everybody what we are as the university for Houston.”

Buzzing into 2026. No stopping now.