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Speaker 1: One thirty three on The Matt Thomas Show. At Ross

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Houston Cougar is knocking off Arizona to secure a six

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and one start of the season a Bowl eligibility. That's

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awesome news for the head coach of the Houston Cougar's

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Willie Fritz, joining us in the courtesy of our friends

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the Joint Chiropractic, the official chiropractor of the Houston Cougars.

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First of all, Wellie, I love the shirt you wore

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at the postgame get together. Bull Bound is cool, but

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it felt like the kids, to a man after the game,

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said they had got more to accomplishes that since you

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got from the guys after the win on Saturday.

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Speaker 2: You bet you that's you know, that's always one of

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your goals, you know that playing a bowl game. I

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played a bunch of them. I've been lucky fortunate to

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do that, and they're all good ones, every single one

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of them. But uh yeah, there's a lot of a

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lot of other things to accomplish his season, and I

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just wanted to make sure we put it out there

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and let the kids know about it. Obviously, other people

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we're gonna talk talk to him about and tell them

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that and we are Bowl eligible, and there are very

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many teams in the country that are Bowl eligible right now,

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so we're proud of that, but we sure do want

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to accomplish a lot more than that.

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Speaker 1: You know, welly, there's so many folks that will criticize

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final two minutes use of timeouts, even the best coaches

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in the country. I thought, what your squad did in

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the execution in the final two against Arizona's perfection. How

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much do you work on that, and even if you

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do a lot during the course of the week, is

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there just something different about having to try to run

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a two minute in a game and a tight game

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as compared to doing it on a raindo practice day.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, we just did it practice this morning.

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Did a little bit HANDI game situation. I think had

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thirty seven seconds. They had the ball of the minus

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forty eight one time out on each side. We do

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a lot of it sometimes with seven on seven where

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we just use the linebackers, the defensive backs, the wide receivers,

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tight ends, running backs, quarterbacks. You know, we have guys

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that can play the part of officials, and you know,

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we have it up on the stadium scoreboard, so you

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work on it a ton, but that one was a

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little different because you went, you know, kind of from

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a four minute situation. We're trying to run the clock

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into a two minute situation. And that's why it's so

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valuable to be able to save your timeouts. We'd had

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to blow one earlier that half, you know, and you

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always want to have three if if possible, but we

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had two of them. We had plenty of time on

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the drive. I thought, Uh, Coach Nangel did a good

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job of tempo, going slow, and then I had to

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go a little bit faster at times there at the end.

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You know, we had some timeouts in our back pocket

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to be able to you know, kind of get the

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clock down to where we wanted it, where it was

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either going to be a make and we win or

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you know, they don't have an opportunity to answer and

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less silvertime. So kids did a good job, they kept

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their composure and uh, you know, everybody did a very

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nice job with it.

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Speaker 1: Do you talk to kickers in your life when plays

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like that come up where they got to go win

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it or do you try to leave them alone?

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Speaker 2: I really pretty much leave them alone. We do a

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whole bunch of it. In practice, we do what we

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call a clock field goal. You know we did that

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on Tuesday, where we get done with stretch, we all

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get together and boom, we just go pack the ball.

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We'll do it tomorrow during our script we'll do we

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call a whistle field goal or officials are looking at

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a replay, we can actually stamp the ball in the

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whistle and kick the ball. And then we got some

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other times I'll have guys staying around the kicker and

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kind of egg him out a little bit, put a

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little pressure on him and stuff. And you know, our guy, really,

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you know, does a super job of not worrying about

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any of that stuff. Ethan, Sayan Chaz and you know

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he's done a good guys who I had two game

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winners for us so far this season.

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Speaker 1: I've asked you this before in the past, but it's

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worthy again because Ethan has been such a big part

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of his team.

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Speaker 2: Are you.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what scholarship situations are, and you've obviously

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got some money that now schools can pay. But the

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kicker role to me, with so many kickers making such

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a big difference, not only making kicks will he but

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kicking them fifty to fifty five yards and maybe ten

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or fifteen years ago, you weren't trying always seeing collectively

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coaches putting more of a priority in recruiting in that

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particular position.

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Speaker 2: Well, we always have. I've always had a you know,

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a kicker, snapper, and a punter on scholarship, and one

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time I was one of the few guys that did that.

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They'd always try to get people, try to get walk

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on us to come in and do that. But we

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want to have a quality person because they can I

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can help you win games. You know, a snapper, Jacob

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Garza is our snapper, does an excellent job. You know,

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on that particular play, you have to have an accurate snap.

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You got to have great protection with the guards, the tackles,

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the tight ends, the wings. And then he Jake Sock

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is our holder and he does a super job holding.

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And you know, if you got a good snap, you

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got a good hold. You know, now the kicker's got

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an opportunity to have a great kick. So it's the

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whole operation obviously. Everything. It's kind of like I talk

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about with the quarterback. Right, you know, things are going good,

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corter that gets too much credit, things aren't going so good.

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They get too much play the same thing with the kicker.

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In those situations, there's a there's an operation that's got

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to be smooth, and all those guys do a fabulous job.

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Speaker 1: I know, Boogie Johnson's injury status is not what you

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want to report or have talked about this week, But

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collectively as a group, how is that room depth wise

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and how do you feel right now at the midway

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point of this season in terms of your overall depth

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on both offense and defense.

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Speaker 2: Well, Stefan Johnson's had a great career here and hopefully

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we'll be able to get him to keep keep playing

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here at the University of Houston. Boogie Johnson obviously, and

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you know, Bud, we've got a little bit of depth

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there and we need it, you know, Harvey Bursar, let's

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come on over the last couple of weeks, and Mari

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Thomas is playing extremely well, Kobe Young doing a good job,

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mckaimws Jaquith Martin, true freshman that's playing a bunch for us.

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You know, they had the ability to throw the ball

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in the backs coming out of the backfield. We've got

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some good tight ends. You know, Tanners played extremely well

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for us and Antreville Frederick and you know, so we've

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It's one of the things this is a tough, you know, sport,

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and you've got to make sure you have depth. As

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one of the thanks coming in the season I was

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excited about is that we had more depth and certainly

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what we had last season.

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Speaker 1: Lastly, Willie was nice to get the game over with

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at a good amount of time and got to go

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home and watch the Arizona State game. Let's talk a

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little bit about Sam Lovett. First of all, great quarterback

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has been there a couple of years. Some fourth down

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throws he made late in that game, helping them pull

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off the win. Last week, you're going from one great

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quarterback and defeated another one here this time on the

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road in Tempe.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a really, really good quarterback. He's a little

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similar to the kid last week. You know, he's a

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bigger guy obviously, but a really strong arm. Can make

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all the throws and then you know he is going

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to run downhill. He's going to go up with the

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intention of tackling because sometimes he'll try to load it

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the shoulder, run you over, and he's he's great in

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in the pocket, extending place. Uh, so you know, he's

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one of the top quarterbacks in America, so we've got

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to do a good job of trying to limit his effectiveness.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for the time, has always congratulations, it's so fun

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to see the big victory, the way things turned out,

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and uh, we'll surprise some folks and tempting this weekend.

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Speaker 2: What do you say sounds great? Go Kook's