Head Coach Willie Fritz Talks Upcoming Match Up vs Red Raiders

Head Coach Willie Fritz Talks Upcoming Match Up vs Red Raiders

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
One one on Sports Talk seven on he Let's spend
ten called a minutes with the head football coach of
our Houston Cougar's four and oh after an impressive win
against Oregon State, Willie Fritz, with us on the show. Willie,
thanks as always for joining us. Congratulations on the great start,
Congratulations on having a little downtime. But let me ask

(00:20):
you this, Uh what changed first half? Probably not to
your satisfaction. Late fourth quarter the charge came through. Does
special teams make that kind of difference to get the
positivity going on both sides of the football, especially when
you're down late in the game.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah, I had a couple of big block field goals.
Those are hard to get.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
You know, we need to add they've.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Been having some trouble with their pole kick mechanism, and
you know Will James and Latrell Cutching really the second
one that Will James got, there might have been three
or four guys had a chance to get it, but
they really came up big. And then you know, we
played well the second quarter, you know, offensively, we just

(01:03):
didn't get the points.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
I think we had the.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Ball first and goal on the one yard line twice
and okay, you I had to kick the field goal
out of it had hurt us in the second quarter,
you know, a couple of big plays defensively which we
hadn't given up much. But another thing, I was just
proud of the guys that we hung in there. Everybody's
believing on the sideline, you know, made a few adjustments

(01:28):
and we're able to pull the game out. It's a
you know, you go on the road, it's tough. All
games are tough, but particularly.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
When you go that far on the road. So I'm
proud of the fellas well.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
And when you talk about adjustments, are we dialing up
or dialing back? Offensively and defensively? Are there such terms?
Will you go to your coordinator and say, hey, let's
throw a few more blitzes at him. Will you go
to your coordinator on the offensive side and say, hey,
why don't we go a little more up tempo? What
are the little subtleties that maybe we don't know about
just watching the game that you could definitely tell there

(02:02):
was a momentum shift in that game because of the
special teams and because things got more fluid on the
offensive side of the football.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Well, you know, you changed tempos. We wanted to do that.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
The first half, we weren't getting first house, so it's
hard to stay in a drive when you don't get
first down. So do a good job with up tempo,
and you know, it allows you to throw.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
The ball a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
That can't substitute, you know, do a little better job
with pass protection most of the time. And that's the case,
you know, But the main thing is, Hey, here's what
we've been doing, here's how we've gotten hurt with it.
Here's something we haven't done yet. This is something that
we think can be beneficial for us, and you know,
make those adjustments on the sideline and then go with it.

(02:44):
You know, we just started off slow unfortunately. You know,
we just we have a you know, openers. We call
them the script and you know, and we've gone over
those in great detail and lined up like we out
there going to line up or we're just an execute
the way we too, kept them in the game, got
them ahead, got them confidence, and then we started playing

(03:06):
a lot cleaner, particularly in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
I know that it was a non conference game, but
can that build momentum because most teams are down fourteen
to fourth quarter you're thinking about the long trip, you're
thinking about the you know, the late night and you
know it just wasn't our day. Was Is there anything
you had to say? Was there a beyond the special teams?
Was did you know, hey, we got this so we

(03:30):
can get this game to overtime? We got a chance
to win this thing.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, that was you know there at the very end,
you know, there's always scored to get within seven. The
analytics would have told you that, you know, go for two.
That way, you kick the extra point, make it the
extra points, you win the game. Yeah, yeah, don't get it.
You got another chance to go for two. I just
I just felt like we get the game in overtime,

(03:55):
you know, and with our kicker, you know, field goal
kicker in particular, we were going to have a great
chance to win the game. So we kind of went
against the book in that point in time, and you know,
we got the big fifty yard touchdown reception. You know,
I almost kicked myself in the butt, you know there
at the end, with call some timeouts and we had
them backed up. You know, we could have gotten to

(04:18):
punt and had about fifty seconds on the clock, but unfortunately.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
We had to make it a little bit more of
a nail biting situation than we wanted to.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
So this Red Rider team coming in is also four
and oh no surprise you Willie. You followed college football,
especially Texas football for a long time. They're at five
hundred and seventy three total yards of offense per game.
But it's their defense that I think is probably something
that we're not used to that right Raiders squad on
that side of the football is playing some excellent football
right now.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah, they're doing a good job.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
You know, they're very very, very talented, question and they're
very well coached offense, defense, kicking game. You know, it's
it's a very well coach team. We're gonna have to
do a super job from the beginning of the game
at the end of the game on Saturday night. It's
gonna be very important. We got to play four quarters.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
You know this.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
This this last week was the first game that we've
been minus in the turnover takeaway margin.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
We're minus one.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
We need to be plus one. We need to be
plus two. We got to, you know, play play up
to our the best we can play. It's gonna be
important when you play quality opponent like Texas Tech. So
you know, we've talked about to our kids about that
and had a good week of practice and look imparted
to challenge Saturday night.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
You spend time focusing on a starting quarterback, obviously, you'll
spend a little bit of time I'm assuming during practice
on the backup, but not very much. How do you
do it when you've seen two quarterbacks with some good
amount of game tape on what Texas Tech has shown
them so far this year.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
I don't think there's a whole lot of difference between
the two guys.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
You know, they're gonna run there all offense.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
You know, we've actually gone back and looked a little
bit of the offense. You know, the offensive coordinator did
Texas State. He was the offensive coordinator there last year
and I did a good job there and a lot
of similarities what he did there with what they're doing.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
In Texas Tech.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
It's the style of offense that they run, and and
you know the quarterbacks are going to pretty much, you know,
run that offense. You're not going to get one guy's
going to be primarily a runner and the other guy
primarily a passer. So we just got to be smart
with you know, personnel groupings, formations, splits, you know, down

(06:39):
in distance, tendencies, you know, and then trying to make
the very best call based on all those different things.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
So if you had a chance to and then look,
you'll win a game by one point if it's forty
seven to forty five, or you'll win a game of
fourteen to thirteen if it goes to Cougar's way, which
hopefully it does.

Speaker 4 (06:57):
How do you see this thing turning out?

Speaker 1 (06:59):
You're assuming uh, you know, low turnover side on yours side,
maybe grabbing one away from them. What other keys in
tangibles could you anticipate for your squad if you're gonna
pull off this victory on Saturday.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Night, Well, you're correct, We'll take it either way that
you yeah, but uh, you know, we talk all the
time about the playing to win, and the number one
component of the playing to win for us is you know,
turnover takeaway margin. You know, if we can let me
plus in a turnover takeaway margin, it's going to give
us a you know, great opportunity to be successful. And
then I think we've got to do a good job

(07:29):
with you know the run game, you know, running the
ball successfully stop them from running, you know, you know,
and make a team one dimensional. You know, running the
ball allows you to be two dimensional, I think, and uh,
you know, you don't allow a team to run the
ball and makes them one dimensional.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
I have to throw it every day. You've got some
calls that are gonna be in your favor. Kicking game.
I think it's gonna be important.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
We talk about, you know, winning the special teams and
you know, on the thing, I was this point last week.
We talked about Kobe go beat the Coogs all the time.
We had wait too many penalties. You know, we had
ten penalties. I think they accepted eight of them. Three
of the penalties pre stamp, you know, or self inflicted wounds.
So we got to play a much cleaner game.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
Does time of possession mean a whole lot to you,
because I've watched plenty of games where teams will be
on the field eight nine minutes and only score a
field goal, and then sometimes you're on the field for
a minute and a half and you go eighty yards
and four plays. Is that a factor in your mind
in terms of keeping that prolific offense off the field.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah, that's certainly helps you. But you got to be
able to run the ball and you know, you know,
control the game with short passes and all those kind
of things. You know, if you're on the field offensively,
you're playing a really good defense.

Speaker 3 (08:46):
You know.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
They're not doing anything to you, so you know, you
got to see how the game happens. You know, we'll
take a touchdown, whether it's a one play drive or
a twelve play drive. You know, control of the clock really,
you know, gives you a leg up with not having
to defend a potent offense.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
Like they have.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
Wellie, thank you for the time as always.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Congratulations on the late night when you'll be in a
normal spot at six o'clock.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
You'll be wearing the Royal blue, the Houston uniforms.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
That should be a great crowd, great atmosphere, and I
hope the kids enjoy the experience.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
Well, thank you very much, Go Koogs.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Thank you will appreciate it. Willie Fritz joining US University
of Houston football coach with us here at one forty one
on Sports Talk seven