The new season of college football is nearly upon us, and while Arizona State is seeking to repeat as Big 12 champions, the rest of the conference will have something to say about that. In anticipation of the new season, we're breaking down each of the 15 other schools and where they stand heading into the year. You can find previously released breakdowns below.
Today, we take a look at one team Arizona State faces this season, the Houston Cougars.
What happened last year
Willie Fritz left Tulane after consecutive 11+ win seasons, finally making the jump to a Power Conference school. He was left to pick up the pieces of the Dana Holgorsen era, marked by poor roster construction and habitually falling short of expectations.
Known as an elite program builder - Fritz is 251-129 as a head coach at six different schools between junior college, D-II, FCS, and FBS - he took his time in building up the Cougars. Houston finished 4-8 in Fritz's inaugural year, but upset wins over TCU and Kansas State hinted at the potential under Fritz.
What's new this year
Fritz moved on from offensive coordinator Kevin Barbay with one game left in the regular season last year, and in the offseason he added Slade Nagle to the role. Nagle had been with Fritz for his entire Tulane staff, but spent last year at LSU. Now, the duo is reunited and looking for a more cohesive approach on offense.
Fritz also saw his defensive coordinator, rising star Shiel Wood, get poached by conference foe Texas Tech. In turn, he poached another rising star in Austin Armstrong, who spent the past two seasons as the defensive coordinator at Florida.
Houston was also active in the transfer portal, bringing in 28 new players and finishing with the 27th ranked transfer class. The headlines of the incoming crop of talent are Conner Weigman, former starting quarterback at Texas A&M, and Tanner Koziol, the productive tight end from Wisconsin.
Reasons for optimism
Simply put, Fritz is a turnaround machine. At Central Missouri, he went from 5-6 his first year to 8-3; at Sam Houston State, he went from 6-5 to 14-1. In fact, the only time Fritz has ever had consecutive losing seasons was his first two years at Tulane, but even that saw an increase in wins.
Fritz is a proven program builder, and his reunion with Nagle on offense and the addition of Weigman to run things suggests that Houston should be significantly better than last season, which saw them get shut out twice.
The schedule also lines up nicely. They face the three worst teams in the Big 12 from last year and have a non-conference schedule that will likely see Houston favored in all three games. They also draw Colorado and West Virginia at home, two good but winnable games.
Reasons for skepticism
There's a lot of newness for this program right now. Fritz is still new to the Power 4, as is Houston as a program, and now he's got two new coordinators and a new quarterback. The Big 12 is also pretty stacked in terms of talent.
Nobody doubts Fritz's ability to build Houston into a contender, but his Tulane tenure showed that Fritz isn't always a quick fix guy. The Cougars were in such bad shape when he arrived that it may take more than one good offseason to turn things around.
Realistic expectations
Truth be told, I'm a believer in Fritz. Getting Nagle back in the fold is huge, and Weigman is easily the best quarterback Fritz has ever worked with. Between that and a schedule that seems favorable right now, it would be surprising if Houston doesn't at least make a bowl game.
Personally, I think it could be even more than that. It would not surprise me if the Cougars find their way into the Big 12 title game this year. They have the talent and coaching prowess to be this year's version of last year's Sun Devils.
In an effort to be more realistic, though, Houston should easily be in the bowl game territory, with legitimate potential to upset some of their best opponents on the schedule along the way.