It has been 37 years since Texas Tech and Houston met with both ranked teams.
Friday night, under the lights in Lubbock, Texas, it happens again. And I believe Willie Fritz’s Cougars have a chance to be as good as the Houston team that last played the Red Raiders in this type of game, in 1989.
That same year, former Houston quarterback Andre Ware won the Heisman Trophy on the strength of newspaper clippings and word of mouth. Due to NCAA sanctions, none of the Cougars’ games were allowed to be televised live that season. However, that team finished 10-2 and defeated the no. 18 Texas Tech, 40-24, at the Houston Astrodome.
If Fritz and his Cougars can knock off the defending Big 12 champions, the challenges — and the rewards — will be entirely different.
Willie Fritz is 16-11 two games into his third season as Houston’s head coach. (Photo by Zach Del Bello/Getty Images)
For starters, we’ll all be watching the game on TV (8pm ET Friday on FOX). That could do wonders for a program looking for a big win.
And there’s a trend worth noting: The Cougars have won four of their last five meetings with Texas Tech when ranked. They lost the most recent one.
I’ve pegged the Cougars as a program — like USC or Florida — that could earn their first invitation to the College Football Playoff this year. With a win on Friday night, many others will begin to do the same.
If Houston can pull off an upset win on the road in what is the most hostile environment in the Big 12 — Galaxy Stadium at night — the rest of the schedule looks less like a Crus’n World contest: every game won’t be easy, but none will be as tough as Texas Tech.
Houston won’t face another ranked opponent until Oct. 24, when the Cougars travel to Utah and they also avoid playing BYU this season. Another 10-win season is within reach for Houston and Fritz, who has done nothing but win.
Willie Fritz led Houston to a 10-3 record in 2025, which included a win over LSU in the Kinder’s Texas Bowl. (Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images)
As I wrote in my Ultimate 138Fritz’s resume includes two junior college national titles, two FCS national title game appearances, leading Georgia Southern to a 9-3 record in its first season of FBS play and two American Conference Coach of the Year awards.
Houston was a 10-win team last season that was only really beaten once — a 35-11 loss at the hands of Joey McGuire’s Texas team.
This figure.
McGuire has taken the Red Raiders from a program that could finish in the middle of the conference most years and built one to be respected, if not feared.
Joey McGuire has posted a 37-18 record during his time as the head coach at Texas Tech. (Photo by Josh Hedges/Getty Images)
McGuire is a coaching legend in the state of Texas, with a 141-42 record between 2003 and 2016, including 12 straight Texas High School Football Playoff appearances and four state championships. At Texas Tech, a program that had never won a Big 12 title — let alone earned a CFP invitation — McGuire accomplished both by year 4.
Like Fritz, McGuire adapted to the modern era of sports by using the name, image and likeness (NIL), the transfer portal and an aggressive recruiting strategy to turn the Red Raiders into a winner. A win on Friday night — a holy night from August to December in the state of Texas — would see the Big 12 title frontrunner emerge.
In a sport where a coach’s attitude and personality can shape what happens on the field, there may not be a more compelling coaching matchup. Both have strong origins. Both have won at many levels of the game. And both have built teams good enough to push their way into the national championship conversation.
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