Speaker 1: Where it's at the Rocket to take on the Hawks.
Speaker 2: Let's spend a few minutes right now with the head
football coach of your Cougar's, My Cougar's, America's Cougar's very
impressive win against Oklahoma State back home for a Saturday
tilt with Arizona eleven o'clock.
Speaker 1: Start time at TDCU Stadium. Willie Fritz is with us
on the show. Willy. First of all, congratulations seven to nothing.
Oklahoma State started off a lot of trick plays early on.
Once things got settled down, you guys took over. Were
you surprised at the amount of trickery that Oklahoma State
tried to throw at you guys, especially in that first half.
Speaker 3: Well, they've been doing it, you know, the last couple
of ball games again, the interim head coach really, you know,
all their play callers, you know, why not? You know,
I told our kids throw the kitchen sink at us,
and we got to do a great job of having
good eyes on every single play. And you know, for
the most part we did. But early the ball game,
they we're in a little double pass and sent it
back up a shoot. Unfortunately, we rallied for the first
throw and they had two throws involved in the play.
But after that we settled down and played pretty darn
good and I don't think we gave up another trick
play after that.
Speaker 1: You settled down. Your offense was great. You got a
lot of different receivers involved. That had to be pleasing,
especially for guys that are running those routes and practicing
hard during the week. To finally see their name being
called in a plane to reach the end zone and
have the big numbers they had had to be very
pleasing to that group.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really did. We threw for over three hundred
and rushed for almost two hundred yards. Harvey Bruce Sard,
who's done a great job in practice, kind of like
you were saying, and because this hasn't had a chance
to get much action in the game, he had some
really big time catches for us and also forced, you know,
a big fifteen yard penalty sometimes that you know and
it doesn't show up on the stat sheet, but you know,
you're throwing the ball deep and you beat the defender
and he has to go in and int it here
with you. That's still a huge play for you. But
we were glad to see Horvey get going.
Speaker 1: Was there a part of you that had to have
gotten the guys on the bus and the pregame hype
and at the stadium and say, look, we had a
disappointing loss against Texas Tech. Oklahoma State's going through transition.
Let's get out to a fast start, because you don't
want a team like that who's all fighting for positions
in their future, to make this a ball game. And really,
after that first touchdown they scored, it really wasn't much
of a ball game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, we kind of took care of all
that on the Monday, you know, after the previous game.
And I always talk about, you know, every week is
its own season, and I'm flushing the previous game, whether
you won or lost, down the toilet and doing everything
you can to play better and keep proving every single week.
And that's what lead people do, Elite teams do. They're
able to focus and concentrate day after day after day
after day, and he's stacking up good days on top
of each other. Can improve and be the very best
you could possibly be. So the guys, I thought we
had a good week of practice, and you know, in
this big twelve, you got to do that every single week.
It's everybody's pretty gone good, and you know, we just
want to keep striving to play that, you know, that
perfect game.
Speaker 1: Willie, you were talking about getting some different guys involved
when you were coaching and managing a roster. You were
thinking about some red shirts and whatnot, and getting guys
in and maybe burning them. I don't know if that's
even a possibility much anymore because of the portal and
guys moving left and right. But do you especially for
the kids you have recruited that you said, maybe they're
not ready to go just yet, but we can sneak
them in. Are you spending as much time you and
your staff about who's playing red shirts? Or is that
just the kind of a thing in the past.
Speaker 3: Now, No, we do talk about that, you know. I
but you know, I tell all our guys all hands
on deck. At the beginning of the year, I said,
anybody who's I wanted to play just four games and
then decide to red shirt, you know, just go ahead
and head on out the door. I want everybody all
in for the Coogs, you know. But when you start
getting to this point of the year and the guys
only played a little bit, that does come into your
thought your thought process. So there's a few guys that
will end up being red shirted. But you know, I
don't have a crystal ball. I don't know. You know
what's cot We're gonna be ad in two, three, four weeks,
you know, So we just want everybody all in on
the twenty twenty five Cougs.
Speaker 1: Well, you got an Arizona team coming in a double
overtime loss to b YU. As you looked at that
game tape, they played a late night game. A thought
or two about what they did well and do you
anticipate another game like that where they could come down
to a final possession late in the contest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know it possibly could. You know, they
had a long game, they had a rain delay. I
think the game actually lasted, you know, over five hours
from the beginning to the very end. You know, they
were up and by you did a great job of
get in the field goal. I think it was five
minutes to go and then score with just a few
seconds left to send it into overtime. But this is
a very talented Arizona team. The quarterback probably gonna end
up being their all time leading passer and school history.
They've had a lot of great quarterbacks out there at
Arizona and good a good receiving corps. They've run the
ball very successfully. Defensively, they really throw a lot at
you there. You know, three manion front, four man in front.
They'll bring guys from the second level, a blitz, a drop,
you know, defensive lineman at times. So you know, it's
a team we've really had to study early in the week,
you know, just with our scout team to make sure
those guys line up properly and give our guys a
good look.
Speaker 1: And the kids now acclimated of this early start time.
We had the eleven o'clock kickoff last week and still water.
No plane trip this time around, but still a fairly
early wake up call for the boys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, we talked to us every morning, so
we start our meetings at seven am, so tell our
guys we can sleep in a little bit. So I
think they're excited about it.
Speaker 1: Willie, thank you for the time. By the way, a
sixth win gets his Cougar football program back to the
bulls and that's something we need to be on a
regular basis. I don't know if that's a huge thing
for your kids, that are in that locker room now,
but for an alumni base that has seen some leaner times,
it's a pretty big accomplishment. You could be getting a
here on this game against the Wildcats.
Speaker 3: Well, our big goal obviously is to win this week.
We just want to do that every single week. You
do the very best. We can't keep improving and good
things will happen for Houston.
Speaker 1: I will leave it that coach, Thank you for the
time as always, really appreciate it, and best of luck
on that midday Saturday.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me on, Go Koobs.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Willie Fritz with us here on Sports Talk
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