How Close Is Houston Football to Closing the Gap on Texas Tech and BYU?
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In Houston football head coach Willie Fritz’s second season with the Cougars, he led his squad to an impressive 10-win season, finishing 10-3 overall last year.
Fritz entered a program that sat towards the bottom of the Big 12 Conference, and now he has completely turned the team around.
While the Cougars are on the come-up, how close are they to actually closing the gap on teams like Texas Tech and BYU?
How Houston Compares to Texas Tech and BYU
Texas Tech and BYU are two of the premier teams in the Big 12, and both programs showed why in 2025.
The Red Raiders finished with one loss in the regular season, and they defeated BYU in a 34-7 blowout victory to claim the Big 12 Conference Championship Title.
Texas Tech then earned its first CFP berth, where the Red Raiders went on to suffer a 23-0 loss to the Oregon Ducks.
BYU also had a stellar season in 2025, finishing with just one regular-season loss to Texas Tech and the Cougars just missed out on a playoff spot.
With Texas Tech and BYU finishing No. 1 and No. 2 in the conference, respectively, Houston followed closely behind at No. 4 in the final standings.
One major advantage that these two schools have over Houston is a whole lot more money that they can spend on their players.
Both programs are known for bringing in top-rated football players because of the budget they have.
While Houston isn’t quite on the same level financially, the Cougars did have their highest-rated recruiting class in program history with the 2026 class, highlighted by the No. 1 player in the country in freshman quarterback Keisean Henderson.
Since Fritz took over, the program is on the rise and recruiting is a huge part of that success.
The main example is the 2025 transfer portal class that Fritz pieced together, and it is vitally important to be able to recruit at both the high school and college levels in this era of NIL.
Some key names Fritz brought in were Conner Weigman, Amare Thomas, Dean Connors and Tanner Koziol, and those four players led Houston’s powerful offensive attack, which averaged 29.1 points per game last season.
The Cougars also capped off their strong year by defeating LSU 38-35 in the Texas Bowl inside NRG Stadium, and that win felt like an exclamation point on what coach Fritz and staff are building at the University of Houston.
While there is still a slight gap between Houston and schools like Texas Tech and BYU, it is not as big as it was just two seasons ago.
The Cougars will have a shot to see how they measure up against the defending Big 12 champions on Sept. 18, when they will face the Texas Tech Red Raiders in Lubbock at 7 p.m.
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Ashton Grissom is a staff writer for Houston Cougars on SI. He is currently a senior at the University of Houston and majoring in Sports Media Production with a minor in Marketing and Spanish. He also works for two student organizations: The Cougar and CoogTV. You can find Grissom on his Instagram (@ashtonagrissom8) or Twitter (@ashtongrissom8).