HOUSTON \u2014 Coach Willie Fritz spent this offseason upgrading his offense after Houston had one of the worst units in the nation last year.<\/p>\n
The Cougars ranked second-to-last in scoring offense by managing just 14 points per game, were 128th in total offense with 288.1 yards and 126th in passing offense with 152.7 yards as they finished 4-8.<\/p>\n
The biggest changes Fritz made entering Year 2 in Houston were adding former Texas A&M quarterback Conner Weigman and hiring Slade Nagle to replace offensive coordinator Kevin Barbay, who was fired before last year\u2019s season finale. Nagle spent last season as an assistant at LSU.<\/p>\n
Before that, Nagle spent several seasons working with Fritz at Tulane, where the Green Wave won 23 games combined in the 2022 and 2023 seasons.<\/p>\n
Fritz is thrilled to be reunited with Nagle and loves how he interacts with the offense.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously when you hire someone you want them to have the same philosophy as you have,\u201d Fritz said. \u201cI know Slade very, very well. He\u2026 really does an excellent job of leading and coaching all the positions, which I think is unique. I also think his experience at LSU is going to help us. They were one of the leading passing teams in the nation. I see some concepts that he\u2019s using that are a little different than what we have done at Tulane. But he also understands the importance of being balanced.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fritz is also eager to see Weigman operate Nagle\u2019s offense after the Houston native spent the last three seasons with the Aggies. Weigman played just 15 games at Texas A&M after suffering a season-ending foot injury in his fourth game in 2023 and dealing with a shoulder injury before being benched in October of last season.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Texas A&M quarterback Conner Weigman warms up before an NCAA college football game against Auburn, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Auburn, Ala. Credit: AP\/Butch Dill<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been everything that I hoped he\u2019d be,\u201d Fritz said. \u201cHe\u2019s a great young man, great leadership abilities \u2026 he\u2019s just been aces. We\u2019re just very, very fortunate to have him in our football program, interacts with everybody, just a real old-fashioned type of quarterback.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weigman threw for 2,694 yards with 19 touchdowns and seven interceptions in his career at A&M.<\/p>\n
Roster competition<\/p>\n
Fritz believes the Cougars will be improved this season because they\u2019ve built much more depth in the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of legitimate competition positionally,\u201d he said. \u201cLast year we didn\u2019t have a lot of depth, we didn\u2019t have a whole lot of competition. One guy was going to start for us no matter what. Now we\u2019re going to have to use our first two or three games to figure out exactly who\u2019s going to be playing and how much they\u2019re going to be playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
New defensive coordinator<\/p>\n
The Cougars not only have a new offensive coordinator but also a new face running the defense in Austin Armstrong. He was hired to replace Shiel Wood, who left Houston for the same job at Texas Tech.<\/p>\n
Armstrong spent the last two seasons as the defensive coordinator at Florida and was the youngest in his position in the Southeastern Conference when he got that job at just 31.<\/p>\n
Returning receivers<\/p>\n
Weigman will have a couple of senior receivers in Mekhi Mews and Stephon Johnson as he takes over Houston\u2019s offense.<\/p>\n
Johnson led the team last season with 32 receptions for 402 yards. Mews ranked third with 29 receptions and 253 yards. Mews is also the team\u2019s kick and punt returner and had a 75-yard punt return for a score last season.<\/p>\n
The schedule<\/p>\n
The Cougars open the season Aug. 28 by hosting Stephen F. Austin before visiting crosstown rival Rice in Week 2. They open Big 12 play at home Sept. 12 against Colorado before an early off week. They return to play Sept. 26 with a visit to Oregon State before hosting No. 23 Texas Tech on Oct. 4. A big test comes Oct. 25 with a visit to 11th-ranked Arizona State and they\u2019ll close the regular season with a trip to Baylor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2014 Coach Willie Fritz spent this offseason upgrading his offense after Houston had one of the worst…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[1976,1607,399,398,396,397,99,9815],"class_list":{"0":"post-92167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-college","9":"tag-college-football","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-football","13":"tag-ncaafootball","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-wires-bot"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}