DALLAS – Cougar Football begins its first fall camp under Willie Fritz on Wednesday, July 31. Starting Monday, GoCoogs.com will release over 20 video interviews from UH’s open locker room event this week.
Watch: wide receivers discussing the season, tight ends being funny, and asking transfers why they chose Houston.
Weekend notes from three days in the locker room with Houston Cougar football players:
Georgia transfer WR Mekhi Mews turned heads in the spring, catching everything in sight and being the consummate ‘pro.’ Several of his teammates say he’s the most under-the-radar player on the offense. Mekhi will likely be used in the return game early in the season.
Of the 29 players I spoke to in UH’s preseason media gauntlet, Jayden York was the most entertaining. He’s got an infectious smile and a great laugh. The 6’4″ transfer TE from Texas Tech expects Kevin Barbay’s offense to be tight end-friendly and says the offense has routes he’s never seen a TE run before.
Linebacker Michael Batton has maybe the craziest road to Houston that any player’s ever traveled. Batton was the starting quarterback at Seven Lakes HS in Katy for three years before graduating in the spring of 2019. He briefly walked on as a receiver at Louisiana that summer but decided the situation wasn’t right, so he transferred to Blinn’s Bryan campus. He took a year off of football before enrolling at (then) Houston Baptist as an athlete/quarterback. Batton did not play during HBU’s abbreviated 2020 season but says that’s when he started believing he belonged as a college athlete.
He left HBU and went to community college on Long Island to play QB. “It was best to go to a JUCO where I was wanted,” Batton said Friday about choosing Nassau Community College. After a season at Nassau, he accepted a scholarship at Wagner University before learning that an arcane NCAA rule would force him to get an associate’s degree before transferring back to a four-year college. He returned to Houston and finished his associate’s at a local JUCO in the spring of 2022. ULM began recruiting him that semester, and he went to Monroe, Louisiana, for two seasons. He played in all 24 games for the Warhawks.
He entered the portal after the 2023 season and was scooped up by the new staff at Houston. Bratton is intense, and several players have told me that they expect him to be a fan favorite. One returning starter on defense said he expects Bratton to start early in the season.
Kicker Jack Martin is one of my favorite guys to talk with. I asked him about his struggles beyond 40 yards last season (3/9), and he owned it. He’s focusing on honing in on accuracy, mainly through improving his swing path.
The place-kicking operation will be new this year, with QB Jake Sock holding and Jacob Garza as the long snapper. Jack said the trio has come a long way since the spring.
Martin also praised new special teams coordinator Mike Krysl. Krysl was among the first coaches brought in by Willie Fritz but was named an analyst for special teams. In June, the NCAA began allowing analysts to be on-field coaches during practices and games. With the change, Krysl’s title was changed to coordinator. Krysl played for Fritz at Central Missouri and worked for him in various roles at CMU, Georgia Southern, and Tulane.
More pre-camp notes are coming early in the week.
