How the Houston Cougars Built a Winning Team Through Transfer Portal
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During his midweek press conference on Monday, head coach Willie Fritz touched on a variety of subjects including the development of Conner Weigman, the three-sack performance by Eddie Walls, and updates on the health of Carlos Allen Jr.
The veteran head coach also touched on a topic that has been a theme for the Houston Cougars this season: the transfer portal. To quickly recap, Fritz and Co. made splashes in the offseason landing 16 commitments from players in the portal.
Some of the more impactful acquisitions in the offseason for the Cougars include Weigman, tight end Tanner Koziol, running back Dean Connors, and defensive backs Jordan Allen and Will James. Fritz recently gave the media some insight on how he evaluates players that fit Houston's football program.
Hitting the Transfer Portal Jackpot
Within the offense alone, there are now eight starters that weren't a part of the program last year. On the defensive side, six starters came to Houston in the most recent transfer portal cycle. Towards the end of his midweek press conference, Fritz was asked about how he found success with so many of this season's transfer portal additions.
"We talk all the time about perfection is our goal, excellence will be tolerated," Fritz said. "We got to do a great job with that because there's a lot of competition with different guys and you got to really see if they can play at this level, and the other part, and I think we did an excellent job of this year, is finding guys that fit how we do things in our football program."
Fritz's statement sheds some light on the importance of finding players that aren't just good athletes. As previously mentioned, there are many coaches that can build a stacked roster using the transfer portal, but there are very few that fully know how to utilize it.
The head coach added to his statement by saying that the coaching staff didn't just add good players in the offseason, but good people as well.
"You know we really did a good job of finding not only good players, but also really good people," Fritz said. "It makes it so much easier as a head coach, position coach, coordinator, strength coaches, nutritionists, everybody involved in the program when you've got good people...that's one of the reasons why we were able to handle something as tough as last Saturday.
How Houston's Newcomers are Contributing
Through their first eight games, there have been a variety of impact players for the Cougars. Here's a midseason breakdown of some of the notable transfers that have seen the most action so far this season.
Offense
Conner Weigman- Quarterback from A&M
1,582 passing yards, 12 passing touchdowns, 354 rushing yards, eight rushing touchdowns.
Dean Connors - Running Back from Rice
586 rushing yards, four rushing touchdowns, 4.3 yards per carry.
Amare Thomas- Wide Receiver from UAB
30 receptions, 535 receiving yards, four touchdowns, 17.8 yards per catch.
Tanner Koziol - Tight End from Ball State
43 receptions, 450 receiving yards, four touchdowns, 10.5 yards per catch.
Defense
Eddie Walls III - Defensive End from Bethune Cookman
32 total tackles, 15 solo tackles, 5.5 sacks, five pass deflections.
Will James - Defensive Back from Southern Miss
19 total tackles, 14 solo tackles, three pass deflections, one forced fumble, one interception.
Jordan Allen - Defensive Back from LSU
34 total tackles, 23 solo tackles, two pass deflections.
Marc Stampley II - Defensive Back from Georgia Southern
22 total tackles, 13 solo tackles, one sack, one interception, three pass deflections.
