UH has hired 11 different Head Coaches since December 1986.
11 Coaches over 38 seasons.
This instability is not unique to UH. But it is very unfortunate. And the finances! The Aggies are paying Fisher $75 million not to Coach there, plus payroll for the current staff, Our Dana buyout pales in comparison.
Fritz is 64 and starts the 11th. “Rebuild” in 38 seasons. Obviously it is not built right in the first place. And,again, not unique to UH.
Yeoman was 35 when hired and was at Michigan St. That program had won a National Title when Yeoman was there. And he had knowledge of how to recruit Texas. He was a former Army Player when they were a great program and he was Captain of their team.
Our Brain Trust has had difficulties with choosing Head Coaches. Not unique. A&M heads up that situation. They lost at home by 10 last Saturday with 102,000 looking on. They scored only 13 and have a QB that was a 5 Star recruit. With all their $money The Aggies remain mediocre.
Anyone know how to fix this? Is Fritz the fixer? Why is he the answer when all others since Yeoman either could not fix it or did and left for a better job? And those who did fix it(Herman) did not leave behind enough talent to sustain success.
This is a good post. I believe the biggest problem that well face is NIL. We’re dead last in most financial metrics in the Big 12, and I believe our basketball program even isn’t anywhere near top 50 in funds generated in basketball. I think our season ticket price hike is going to continue would be my guess. I’m at 115, about row 11, and I’m expecting around $800 a ticket when its all said and done.
I was concerned about Fritz’s age, although I think hes the right guy for the job. I don’t completely blame the UNLV game on him, I don’t think Mother Holgerson left much in the cupboard. I’ve seen lots of preseason lists saying Smith is a top 20 NCAA quarterback. I definitely don’t see that.
Our fanbase, unfortunately isn’t very patient so he’ll probably only get a year or two before most of us are ready to move on.
We have been patient for 7 years. How much more patience should we have? Time is finite.
I want Coach fritz to do well but i also wanted someone that came and did what we know can be done. I think this is a bigger wait time which is fine but i wanted to see a fight. Not us rolling over.
It’s a fair question, and the SWC conference days really was a double-edged sword for UH because despite how much mediocrity has plagued our football program since the 70s, we continued to believe that we SHOULD be held to the same standard as schools like A&M and UT, when we simply did not have the resources or money.
NIL will always be a problem for UH because of the generational leap that schools like Baylor and Tech had over UH to be in Power Conferences.
UH getting kicked to the curb after the SWC is what killed any momentum the school had in terms of the genre of alumni who would actually be willing to donate money to the school and/or athletic programs.
The biggest obstacle for UH’s continued success in football isn’t the parade of head coaches or ADs, or scheduling. It is the lack of alumni and fan support both from a NIL and financial donations perspective and from a game attendance perspective. More fans bring in more money that can help the program create a first class atmosphere. So how do we generate fan support in the short term? Only one way. Win on the field. Everything else will take years to build.
Just like you build a house one brick at a time, you build this program one game at a time.
What hurts UH is that UH has to compete with Texans football, but we also have to compete with alums from A&M, UT, LSU, Tech, TCU, Baylor, OU, etc…
UH is unable to tap into all these NIL opportunities because we are competing with programs who are better than us and have more eyeballs nationally.
Corporations aren’t going to pony up money just to advertise to viewers who are mostly going to be from Houston. LSU, Texas, Oklahoma, those schools gets eyeballs nationally no matter how good or bad they are because they play in better conferences.
It took Fritz eight years to have an an overall winning record at Tulane and his third year to become bowl elgible. UH won’t be that generous.
I don’t mean this to be negative to Fritz. Tulane is a different job and Fritz has done well at other places. I’m just saying, and he knows, UH isn’t going to be as generous as Tulane was.
There’s a lot of things that UH can do to improve, but it takes money, which we don’t have.
UH spends all its own money on athletics because it’s the best product it can offer right now. Renu (and Tilman) are hoping that UH will eventually get over that hump athletically so that they can eventually start investing in other aspects of the University.
We simply do not have the donors that can jumpstart UH to where we all want it to be.
It’s obvious that the Board of Regents are trying to get UH to be on the same level as SEC/Big Ten schools, but without the donors and merely relying on athletic success, it’s going to take long time.
No one will contribute a dime based on what we saw against UNLV. 2. The era of CBY ended nearly 4 decades ago. 3. We’ve had good coaches in the interim but failed to retain them. 4. Dana did not recruit which is how we end up with 60+ transfers. 5. They will play better the longer they are together, though I doubt they win a game this season.
It is encouraging to see Fritz hit High School recruiting hard. That is how to build long term depth, and success.
In 5 seasons Dana never recruited a High School QB that played. Clayton Tune was recruited by Kendall Briles. And Smith is a transfer.
Our Brain Trust never challenged Dana on this obvious error. In 5 years nothing happened to make him change that. Even we casual fans know that a successful program recruits and develops QB’s. And Greater Houston produces lots of solid prospects.
Neither Pez nor Khator ever corrected Dana on this and thus we have Smith at QB instead of a good player who has been on campus for years, practicing and improving.
We are not alone. Lots of University Administrators nationwide cannot properly spot Head Coaching talent and sign them and keep them.
" I think our season ticket price hike is going to continue would be my guess. I’m at 115, about row 11, and I’m expecting around $800 a ticket when its all said and done."
In the CBY years, early and later, I held season tix to both football and BB. Set aside in the budget (young budget, every peso counted) the exact amount for our entertainment for the year-worth every cent. Can’t remember now, but one year we had a really good FB team with a lot of season tix folks, stadium (Rob, then the dome) always had good crowds, students, interested visitors. Right after that year one of our wonderful AD’s decided to raise the prices so high that the average bear like me could no longer afford it. I wasn’t the only one, we had a massive drop off in season tix holders, visitors forgot it, and you never had to worry about crowds again. I’ve seen that mentality stay, like the old saying “dance with who brung ya” never existed. Our chiefs think we should be equal to cows and farmers, 'specially in $, but seem to forget what it takes to keep the fans, those who are true and those who might be, happy. Just go after more money.