UH Cougar football: 2024 attendance and season recap

The University of Houston's football program averaged 27,423 fans per game this season, which represents a drop of almost 8,600 fans/game from last season. However last season's attendance was heavily influenced by the Texas game (and ticket brokers and Longhorn fans who may have bought season tickets just to secure a seat at said game), so the 2022 season may be a fairer comparison. In that case, the Cougars averaged 2,630 more fans/game than two years ago. Here's the graph:

The bad news is that this puts Houston dead last in the Big XII. The better news is that attendance has the potential to be better next year, with in-state rivals such as TCU and Texas Tech coming to town, along with the hype machine that is Deion Sanders and his Colorado Buffaloes. But, as the above graph has always shown, the one thing that really helps attendance is winning. 

The Cougars, of course, did not win in 2024; they ended the season with a 4-8 record, identical to last year's campaign and one win better than my preseason prediction. It was understood that 2024 would likely be a rough year, as the program was in transition under a new coaching regime, and the previous coaching staff's indifference to recruiting had left some big holes in terms of talent. 

While there were some encouraging moments to the season (avenging last year's loss to Rice, beating preseason conference favorite Utah and a ranked Kansas State team at home, upsetting TCU on the road), the program was overall very inconsistent. 

The offense sputtered all season long, failed to score a touchdown in four games, and put up some of the worst stats in program history. Head coach Willie Fritz was forced to dismiss his offensive coordinator, Kevin Barbay, before the season even ended. Slade Nagle, who was previously Fritz's OC at Tulane and was an assistant at LSU this past season, now takes over on the offensive side of the ball.

The defense, on the other hand, excelled. Unfortunately for the Cougars, that meant that defensive coordinator Shiel Wood was poached by a program with deeper pockets at season's end. Fritz has since hired Austin Armstrong, who spent this past season as Florida, as Houston's new DC.

Fritz is already busily working on upgrading the program's talent for the 2025 season, bringing in a decent recruiting class during the early signing period and using the transfer portal to address some critical needs for next year, including a quarterback:

Former Texas A&M quarterback Conner Weigman is set to transfer to Houston for the 2025 season, he announced Wednesday night on social media.

Weigman, who began each of the past two seasons as Texas A&M's starter, entered the transfer portal Monday. Houston was the clear favorite to land the Cypress, Texas, native, who was ESPN's top pocket passer and No. 27 overall recruit in the 2022 class.

"I'm coming home. Time to go to Work H-Town," Weigman wrote on X.

The Cougars are also bringing in fresh talent for the offensive line. Unfortunately, the portal giveth and the portal taketh away.

Needless to say, the program has a busy offseason ahead of it. And while it's way too early to make predictions about the 2025 season, the rebuilding process under Willie Fritz is well underway and I'm cautiously hopeful that we'll see improvement on the field in 2025.

RIP Janis Scott

A local legend is gone.

Janis Scott, a fixture of community meetings and public lectures who was lovingly called “the bus lady” by four generations of Houstonians, died Monday. She was 73.

A nearly lifetime bus rider — there was a time in the 80s when she bought a car but ditched driving after a few years — Scott was one of the most passionate advocates for Metropolitan Transit Authority service, specifically frequent buses crisscrossing oft-neglected communities.

"Janis was one of many riders who kept us accountable for providing good service,” former Metro board member Christof Spieler said. “But she stood out for the thoughtfulness of her comments, the way she stepped back to consider the needs of all the other riders as well, her caring for the bus operators who took her around Houston, and her love of the city and its transit system. She will be missed."

Beyond the bus Scott was a “lifelong learner” who “regularly attended public events with speakers from around the country,” said her friend, Oni Blair.

I knew Janis through my work, as she participated in transit-related workgroups and attended subcommittee meetings I was involved in. I'd oftentimes spend time chatting with her after meetings and listening to her stories. Even during the pandemic, when our transit subcommittee meetings were held virtually, she would call in to listen and then call me directly afterwards to share her thoughts on the discussions that had just transpired.

I would also occasionally see here at METRO Board meetings, where she as a fixture.

“Metro is a lifeline for many of us — it’s a mandate and a civil right,” Scott wrote in an essay for the Kinder institute for Urban Research at Rice University. “If you do not have a car, public transit gives you access to many opportunities, including jobs, medical appointments, education and what I call life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! Transit justice is a form of freedom, where sidewalks and curb cuts are fundamental provisions, especially for people with mobility challenges. It is crucial that the built environment is up to code.”

Scott was very willing to tell officials when bus service was being denied, or how they could improve it and make it affordable for riders. Always polite but never demure, Scott tussled with elected and appointed officials for what she believed, becoming a trusted voice along the way.

“Janis was a Metro treasure,” former transit board chairman Gilbert Garcia said. “She knew more about Houston transit than most Metro employees.  When I became chairman, I would meet with her regularly to hear how we were really doing.  I will miss her infectious laugh.”

At a time when the current mayoral administration (and by extension, its appointees on the METRO Board of Directors) seems hell-bent on ignoring local voters' wishes regarding improvements and expansions to local transit service, strong voices such as hers advocating for better public transportation are needed more than ever. Her passing is a tremendous loss, and I will miss her.

Janis was a 1974 graduate of Rice University and was one of that school's first black graduates. She continued to be involved in campus activities her entire life, and in 2016 received the school's award for outstanding achievement in civic and community service.

Bluesky

I've joined the migration! I'm @indotav.bsky.social on that platform, in case anybody is interested. When I do post (and re-post) there, it will mostly be about transportation, urbanism, politics and sports (kinda like here). I'll post links there to articles I've written here as well.

In the month-and-a-half I've been on Bluesky, I've already gained more (actual) followers than I ever accumulated on Twitter (I will never refer to it as "X"). The conversations in the comments are much less noxious (i.e., no "blue check" trolls spewing hate and misinformation), and I've yet to be followed by a single porn bot. It really is a breath of fresh air when compared to Twitter's increasingly-toxic ecosystem, and I'm not enriching Elon fucking Musk every time I use it, either.

I'm not leaving Twitter yet - there are still a lot of people and entities I follow there that have not made the jump to Bluesky yet - but as the platform continues to gain members I'm hoping that in the coming months I can make the switch entirely.

Houston 18, BYU 30

A rough end to a rough season. 

The Good: The offense scored more touchdowns than they did the two previous games combined, and defense and special teams combined to force three BYU turnovers. 

The Bad: Zeon Chriss, in what will probably be his last game as a (Red) Cougar, turned the ball over three times over the course of the game, including a sack-and-fumble late in the game that led to BYU's game-sealing touchdown. The Houston defense struggled to contain (Blue) Cougar QB Jake Retzlaff, who passed for 167 yards and ran for two touchdowns.

The Ugly: This was the last game of the season and the coaching staff wanted to "pull out all the stops," so to speak, but two examples of unnecessarily cutesy or aggressive playcalling early in the game may have doomed Houston's chances to win:

• After recovering a fumble on BYU's first drive and returning the ball to BYU's red zone, Houston's offense attempted to score on a gimmicky reverse pass thrown by WR Joseph Manjack. It was intercepted. 
• After scoring first and leading 7-0, the (Red) Cougars elected to attempt an onside kick. This unnecessarily aggressive decision backfired in spectacular fashion when BYU's Talan Alfrey scooped up the ball and ran it back 58 yards for an easy (Blue) Cougar touchdown.

What It Means: For the second year in a row, the Coogs end the season with a 4-8 record. Houston is now 0-4 all-time against BYU. 

I'll provide a fuller wrap-up of the 2024 season (as well as an updated attendance graph) in a coming post.