Willie Fritz has climbed nearly every mountain during his 30-plus years as a collegiate head coach. He won a pair of JUCO national championships at Blinn in the 90s, took Sam Houston to two FCS championship games in the 2010s, and conquered the G5 ranks with Tulane in 2022 when the Green Wave won the AAC and knocked off USC in a New Year’s Six bowl.
He only has one peak left to summit – the Power Four. So, when the Houston Cougars came calling after firing Dana Holgorsen, Fritz was all ears.
“I’ve done it at every other level. I want to do it at this level, too,” Fritz said about taking on the Big 12 with Houston. “The only other place I haven’t done it is Division III. I’ve enjoyed each and every level, but I wanted to do it at the highest level in collegiate football.”
The city of Houston was also a draw due to his experience coaching at nearby Sam Houston and Blinn College. His love of Space City is rooted in the two things that matter most to Fritz – family and football. He says that a day doesn’t go by without chatting to two or three former players, some of whom now coach high school football in Houston. Fritz also says that some family vacations were to Houston, where his daughter already lives.
“I gotta find a new place for us to go on vacation,” Fritz jokes. “This job was the perfect fit for me. It was a good job for me in an area of the country I’m really familiar with.”
The Fritz hire was a deviation from the norm for the Cougars. Their head coaching hires during the 21st Century – Art Briles, Kevin Sumlin, Tom Herman, Major Applewhite, Holgorsen to name a few – were all former or current play-callers on the offensive side of the ball. Fritz isn’t a play-caller or devoted to a particular scheme. He’s a program builder. One who wins at every stop.
And that’s exactly what is needed in the Third Ward. Sustained success has been a fleeting commodity for the Coogs. The 12-win season of 2021 was sandwiched between three wins in 2020 and four wins in 2023. A 10-win season in 2006 was followed by a pair of eight-win campaigns. The Cougars won five games in 2010 and in 2012 – both after 10-win seasons the year before. Even the 13-win year under Herman couldn’t be duplicated the following year when the Cougars dropped to nine wins.
Fritz is adamant that there isn’t a secret recipe to his success. He loves building a roster and showing up to work early in the morning. He loves the smell of the grass and the sound of taping ankles. At Blinn, he mowed the field and produced the media guides. He now has a huge staff willing to help with those chores, but his passion for football never wavered. And that love might be the key ingredient to winning.
“If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t do it anymore,” Fritz said. “I’m obsessed with it. I don’t really have any hobbies. I enjoy hanging out with my family and doing football. It is a labor of love.”
And while success feels guaranteed for any program run by Fritz, the wins don’t necessarily come right away. His first team at Central Missouri won five games, while his initial squad at Sam Houston managed six victories. At Tulane, he won four games in Year 1 and five in Year 2. The Cougars managed four wins in their first season as members of the Big 12. Fritz was hired to place the program at the top of the standings annually, which would propel the team into the College Football Playoff.
But don’t expect Fritz to declare long-term expectations. His experience tells him to worry only about today.
“Our goal is to be consistent,” Fritz explained. “To bring it every day – on the good ones and the bad. To improve. To sacrifice. To play through the whistle. We want to win every game we play, and that starts with a consistent approach.”