STILLWATER – At the midway point of the 2025 season, the Houston Cougars have defeated all five of the teams they are capable of beating and are 5-1 overall. At 2-1, Houston is tied for fourth in the Big 12 conference. The story, really, is Houston’s success in the transfer portal. While this team is still very much a work in progress, Willie Fritz and his staff were able to find plenty of competence—and even a little star power—in the portal.
First-year transfers Conner Weigman, Tanner Koziol, Dean Connors, Amare Thomas, Ethan Sanchez, Eddie Walls, Sione Fotu, Khalil Laufau, Marc Stampley, Will James, and others have remade this team. Seventeen first-year transfers have started three or more games (just seven returning players have started three or more games). To piece together 3/4 of your starting lineup from the portal is remarkable. Transfers account for 155 of UH’s 175 points this season.
Conner Weigman is the obvious MVP of this team, but a case could be made for a few others. Koziol, Walls, and the kicker, Ethan Sanchez.
Sanchez has 14 field goals through six games – he is ahead of the pace of Roman Anderson in 1989 (10 FG through six games). Anderson is the all-time single-season leader with 22. Dalton Witherspoon (20 FG in 2019) and Matt Hogan (20 FG in 2012) are in second place on the all-time list. Through six games of their respective seasons, Hogan had 13 field goals and Witherspoon had seven.
Already, Sanchez ranks 12th all-time in a single season.
It’s fair to say that these Cougars have met or surpassed everyone’s expectations. The sheer volume of accomplishments, compared to the last two seasons in the Big 12, is remarkable. The 2025 team:
– Already scored more (175 points) than the 2024 team (168);
– Has more games scoring 31+ against Big 12 teams (two – Colorado and Oklahoma State) than the last two years combined (WVU in OT in 2023);
– Has more road wins (3) than the 2023 and 2024 teams combined (two – at Baylor 2023 and at TCU in 2024);
– The same number of passing touchdowns as the 2024 team (9);
– The same number of rushing touchdowns as the 2024 team (9);
– The same number of passing touchdowns from Conner Weigman (8) as Donovan Smith and Zeon Chriss combined for in all of last year (in 115 fewer attempts);
– 68.3 plays per game is higher than the most plays in a game (65, @Kansas);
– Dean Connors (438 yards) is six rushing yards behind what Re’Shaun Sanford finished with in 12 games (444);
– Tanner Koziol (30 catches) is just behind season-long team-leader Stephon Johnson from a year ago (32);
– More red zone touchdowns (11) than the 2024 team had (8) and more red zone scores (18) than in 2024 (15);
– Has 11 forced fumbles – just two behind the combined total of the 2023 and 2024 teams (13);
– Ethan Sanchez’s 14 FGs are just four short of the combined total from 2023 (8) and 2024 (10); and
– The 2025 team is one touchdown (36 points) away from scoring the same number of points in the 3rd quarter as the last two teams combined (12 in 2024, 31 in 2023).
This team is a long way from a finished product, but it is easily UH’s best in the Big 12 era.
