Willie Fritz and Conner Weigman Believe UH Can Push For a National Championship This Season — Why Is So Much Of Houston Still Sleeping On This Team

When Willie Fritz talks about winning a national championship at the University of Houston (something he first told PaperCity last Christmas Eve on his team’s Texas Bowl hotel arrival), it is not some longterm and abstract goal. He and quarterback Conner Weigman are talking about doing it this season.

“Coach Fritz preaches it every day,” Weigman says. “He says if we don’t turn the ball over one time, we’ll win the national championship.”

It’s about today. Not tomorrow. It’s about seizing the moment that is right in front of this Houston football team. If Weigman can out play another top quarterback — Oklahoma State’s Drew Mestemaker, who is projected to be one of the first QBs taken in next April’s NFL Draft, the first by some draftniks — Saturday night in a TDECU Stadium showdown (6:30 pm, FOX), and follow that up with a win at No. 11 Utah next Saturday (two big IFs), everyone else will suddenly see it too.

This 5-1 Houston team may need to run the table to assure itself a spot in the Big 12 Championship Game, which is the path to the College Football Playoffs and a national championship chance. (That two-point loss at Texas Tech removed much of the Cougars’ margin of error in a tight Big 12 race.) Just don’t try and tell this quietly confident group that’s not possible.

It’s not national championship or bust for this UH team. But it’s a mission that Fritz is not afraid to verbalize.

“I think so,” Houston general manager Wes Fritz, Willie’s son and right-hand team builder, tells PaperCity when I ask if Fritz talking about the national championship drive out loud is motivating. “You’re in the football hotbed. There’s tons of positive things happening right now. I mean, you want to win. And that’s winning at the highest level.

“I think that’s something he’s not kidding around or bluffing or anything when he says it.”

Willie Fritz doesn’t bluff. What you see is what you get with this 66-year-old football lifer and family man. There are Buckingham Palace guards who are less straight forward. If he says something, he means it.

“Coach Fritz preaches it every day. He says if we don’t turn the ball over one time, we’ll win the national championship.” — UH quarterback Conner Weigman

It’s about time for the rest of Houston, outside of the dedicated UH football diehards, to start catching on. It shouldn’t take two drone shows, a free two hour pregame concert in the Cougar Alley tailgating area and ticket specials galore to try and sellout the first game between two Top 25 teams at TDECU in 12 years on a perfect weather night. Not with this Houston team in the national championship race.

The lack of local media coverage, particularly on the TV and sports radio sides, is perplexing. There are exceptions. Nate Griffin of Fox 26 consistently talks Cougars football in the mornings, but this game deserves more notice elsewhere. Look, I’m as interested as anyone to see if Marvin Harrison Jr. can be brought back to life by C.J. Stroud. But there’s more than one compelling football story in the nation’s third largest city.

This Conner Weigman-led Houston offense is averaging 40 points per game, leading the nation in third down conversion percentage and ranking 12th in the country with its average 481.8 yards per game. And in some ways, maybe just getting started.

“It’s a disappointment whenever we don’t go out there and score,” UH left tackle Alvin Ebosele says. ” I’m fully aware of what this offense is capable of. And I feel like we haven’t even shown our full capabilities so far. K-State’s the most points we’ve scored against a Big 12 team this year (35 points), but I know we can do more than that.

“So every week we’re just trying to level up.”

Going 1-0 Every Play

Drew Mestemaker may be an NFL scouts’ darling with his four straight 300-plus yard games and fearless takedown of a then still feared Oregon team. But Weigman is the one with 15 touchdowns thrown to only one interception, a higher RTG (168.6 to 165 for Mestemaker) and six rushing touchdowns.

If you don’t turn the ball over, we’ll win the national championship.

Conner Weigman certainly seems to have taken Willie Fritz’s mantra to heart.

“He’s playing at a higher level than he even was last year — absolutely,” Ebosele says. “Probably his preparation, there’d a bit of a difference there. You can see it showing up on the field. He’s performing at a really high level.”

To the point where Willie Fritz’s team has had the best quarterback on the field in every game it’s played this season. Now that has to happen with Drew Mestemaker on the other side. It helps that Houston often has the best receiver (Amare Thomas), the best tight end (four touchdown man Patrick Overmyer) and the best offensive line (Ebosele, left guard Shadre Hurst, center Anthony Boswell, right guard McKenzie Agnello and right tackle Drew Terrill) in a game too.

“I think that’s something he’s not kidding around or bluffing or anything when he says it.” — UH general manager Wes Fritz on his dad’s national championship message 

This physical, thinking man’s offensive line is as big on preparation as Weigman is. UH offensive line coach Eman Naghavi will often come into the unit’s meeting room to find his guys crushing tape together on their own. “I’ll go in there and they’ll be in there about 30 minutes before I even get in there, all of them watching film,” Naghavi says.

That self motivated drive matters. So does the knowledge.

“Smart guys in general in football makes everything easier across the board,” Weigman says. “Having guys that know what’s going on, having guys that know what the defense is trying to do to us, I mean it helps a lot. . . You’re just able to execute at a very high level.”

Few units in college football are executing or producing at a higher level than this Houston offense. Now the defense appears to be catching on, having given up 16 and 17 points in the last two games.

That national championship push. . . Why not this season? Why not now? This is Conner Weigman’s last shot and even a program on the rise like Willie Fritz’s never knows when its best shot will be.

This is a team obsessed with going 1-0. Every week. Every day, really. Every drill. “A big mantra that I feel like the whole team has adopted pretty well is we’ve got to go 1-0 in everything we’re doing,” Ebosele says. “1-0 in practice. 1-0 in a play. 1-0 for the game this week.”

That’s how you bring the ultimate goal into closer and closer view.

“At the end of the day our big mantra is being 1-0,” Naghavi says. “We try not to look ahead. We know what this place can be. And know what our ability is. But if we start looking ahead, I feel like we’ll miss the ride there.”

If you don’t turn the ball over, we’ll win the national championship.

Willie Fritz isn’t bluffing. Eventually, the rest of Houston will catch on.