{"id":473460,"date":"2026-10-22T14:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T14:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/473460\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T14:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T14:38:10","slug":"houston-cougars-head-coach-willie-fritz-named-to-bear-bryant-coach-of-the-year-watch-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/473460\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Cougars Head Coach Willie Fritz named to Bear Bryant Coach of the Year Watch List"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Life is good right now for the Houston Cougars football program as the season is set to begin its sprint to the finish line of the regular season. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">For the second consecutive season, Houston Football head coach Willie Fritz was named to the Paul \u201cBear\u201d Bryant Coach of the Year Watch List by the American Heart Association. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\"> A 2022 Bear Bryant Award finalist, Fritz has led the Cougars to six wins in its first seven games, for the second consecutive year, and has ascended Houston into the Top 15 nationally for the first time since 2016. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\"> Houston has dominated on the ground over the first seven games of the season under Fritz\u2019s philosophies, averaging 220 yards per game \u2013 17th most nationally, while allowing just 82.6 rushing yards per game on defense \u2013 sixth fewest nationally. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\"> Fritz is one of three Big 12 Conference coaches to be named to the list after leading the Cougars to a 6-1 start and a ranked win for the third consecutive year. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">This Saturday, Houston travels to Salt Lake City to face #10 Utah in a key Big 12 Conference showdown.<\/p>\n<p>Breaking News Alerts<img alt=\"\"  loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" role=\"presentation\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792679890_692_kprc_breaking.webp\" width=\"234\" height=\"50\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf eUxjKG\">More Stories Like This In Our Email Newsletter<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Life is good right now for the Houston Cougars football program as the season is set to begin&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[160337,1890,56,2742,58,57,25017],"class_list":["post-473460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-bear-bryant-award","tag-big-12-conference","tag-houston","tag-houston-cougars","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-willie-fritz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}