Shockmain Davis played for Bill Belichick just four years after he won a national championship under Willie Fritz at Blinn on arguably the most dominant junior college football team ever. He swears he sees plenty of similarities between the eight-time Super Bowl winning football icon and University of Houston’s coach.

“He and Belichick are exactly alike almost,” Davis tells PaperCity. “That’s who Willie reminds me of most. They both drill in on the finer points of the game. They both love teaching the details. That’s why Willie can do it with no-name players. That’s why Belichick can do it with no-name players.”

Davis knows that many will find the comparison almost absurd. After all, Belichick carries a well-earned reputation for being cold blooded with his roster decisions. And he is famously contentious with reporters, stone facedly giving out as little information as humanly possible. Fritz, on the other hand, is a warm presence with his players who is as pleasant and accommodating to the media as any major college football coach in history.

“Belichick isn’t cold,” Davis says. “He just don’t talk.” Davis laughs. “But it’s more about how they both see the game. I’ve never been around coaches who are more into the details than Belichick and Willie. They both love to teach the game.”

It should be said that Davis played for Belichick during the coach’s first year with the Patriots, before the coach became such an overridingly powerful figure and long before his current wacky incarnation at North Carolina with his 24-year-old girlfriend Jordon Hudson. But Davis’ linking of the the two seemingly very different men makes more sense when you think about it in terms of teaching and rebuilds.

Fritz has his Houston team sitting at 9-3 heading into Saturday night’s Texas Bowl (8:15 pm, ESPN) at NRG Stadium, one W over LSU from joining the exclusive 10 win club. It’s just this 65-year-old football lifer’s latest turnaround. It started with taking Blinn from a 5-24-1 run before his arrival to a 39-5-1 dominant spree with two junior college national championships. And includes going 40-15 at Sam Houston and 23-4 his last two seasons at Tulane.

His former player sees some common links.

“When you have hard-nosed coaches that pay that kind of attention to detail, it almost creates a family atmosphere,” Shockmain Davis says. “Because everybody feels accountable to each other. It’s almost like ‘You help me, I help you’ and it becomes a brotherhood. Like me and (new UH offensive assistant coach and former Kansas State great) Michael Bishop.

“That’s my quarterback (at Blinn). He’ll always be my quarterback. We’ll always be texting and talking still today.”

“He and Belichick are exactly alike almost. That’s who Willie reminds me of most. They both drill in on the finer points of the game. They both love teaching the details.” — Shockmain Davis on Willie Fritz

This sense of togetherness — even on a Houston team with a number of transfer portal additions in prominent roles — helps explain why in an era of bowl opt-outs that the Cougars are all in. Even guys like senior tight end Tanner Koziol and senior interior defensive tackle Carlos Allen Jr., who have plenty to prepare for in the NFL Draft process.

“I always wanted to play the game,” Allen tells PaperCity. “Just for my team. I love my team. Opting out was never in my mind. I always wanted to play in the bowl game.”

This commitment is a team thing, one built around how even players like the talented Koziol, who will only spend one season as a Cougar, already feel like Willie Fritz’s program is their home.

This is part of Fritz’s gift, the special sauce from which he believes he can build UH into a program that can compete for a national championship. Make no mistake. This is part of what drives Fritz, the idea of winning a national title at the highest level of college football.

Willie Fritz’s National Championship Mission

Fritz first really verbalized this driving mission this Texas Bowl week. And he feels like it’s important to say it out loud. To let those major recruit early enrollees like Keisean Henderson, the No. 1 ranked high school prospect in the entire country, Melvin Paris Jr., John Hebert and Co. hear it as much as the world.

“It’s possible,” Fritz tells PaperCity of winning it all at UH. “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.”

But it starts with making even relative UH short timers like Tanner Koziol feel part of something bigger than themselves, like they’ve found a home. “We want to have that kind of relationship with our student athletes,” Fritz says. “We work to do that every single day.

“You want to have those lifelong relationships. And if you’re doing it right, you should. You can’t always tell guys exactly what they want to hear. Most of the time they respect that. Sometimes maybe it’s a few years later.”

Shockmain Davis certainly did. He played for Fritz on that dominant 1996 Blinn national championship team and credits his coach with setting the stage for a run in professional football, including that one memorable season with Bill Belichick in New England, that almost no one else expected him to have as an undrafted free agent. This is why Davis shows up at UH’s team hotel to hang out with Fritz this week, why this Texas Bowl means plenty to him too.

“He was a father figure to me off the field,” Davis tells PaperCity of Fritz. “And he kept in touch with me at every level. He’d always send some card or call and congratulate me for something. He always answered the phone when I called. Great guy. But a great coach.

“I played for Belichick, Mike Holmgren (in Seattle) and he goes up there with the top of them.”

Though even Davis allows there is one big difference between his favorite coach and Belichick.

“Bill doesn’t have a beautiful smile like Willie,” Davis laughs. “Willie has a beautiful smile.”

Willie Fritz lets you see his heart too. That’s part of why so many people follow him.

Houston is playing LSU in the Texas Bowl this Saturday, December 27th at 8:15 pm. ESPN is broadcasting the game. Tickets are available here or at the box office.