The Houston Cougars end the 2025 season with a 10-3 record, a #22 ranking in the final AP poll (they're #19 in the final Coaches poll), and a bowl win over an SEC blue blood. Pretty good for a season for which I struggled to predict six wins last August, and good enough to earn an end-of-season "A" grade from Dave Campbell's Texas Football. Incidentally, this is only the fourth time since 1990 (!) that the Cougars have ended the season with an AP top 25 ranking.
Another positive from last season was attendance: the Cougars averaged 32,215 fans per game over the 2025 season, an increase of 4,793 fans per game from 2024.
That being said, this was still the worst average attendance of the 16 schools in the Big 12. And these numbers got a boost by the large contingent of Texas Tech fans that helped sell out that game. Hopefully this year's on-field success will translate into more ticket sales in 2026. I also hope that the athletics department takes a hard look at the gameday experience at TDECU Stadium, which hasn't been great. Fewer 11 AM kickoffs would help, too, but that's not something UH can control.
Speaking of 2026, the schedule was released earlier this week:
Sat Sep 05 Oregon State
Sat Sep 12 Southern
Sat Sep 19 at Texas Tech
Sat Sep 26 at Georgia Southern
Sat Oct 03 Central Florida
Sat Oct 10 at Kansas State
Sat Oct 17 Oklahoma State
Sat Oct 24 at Utah
Sat Oct 31 (off)
Sat Nov 07 Cincinnati
Sat Nov 14 at Colorado
Sat Nov 21 at West Virginia
Sat Nov 28 Baylor
As of right now, these are all Saturday games. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see the networks flex at least a couple of these games to Friday.
This schedule starts off great, with back-to-back home games against Oregon State and Southern. But it gets rough from there, with two sets of back-to-back road games, lots of long-distance travel (e.g. Salt Lake City, Utah; Morgantown, West Virginia), and only one bye week two-thirds of the way through the season. Those last three road trips may be played in winter conditions, as well. The home slate is manageable (although Oklahoma State will likely be improved), but Ryan calls the road schedule "daunting."
As for the on-field product, it's hard not to be optimistic about 2026; Willie Fritz and his staff clearly have momentum on their side, and have diligently worked the transfer portal to bring fresh talent into the program. How well this team does is likely going to come down to how it performs on the road.
The Cougars appear on "way-too-early" top 25 rankings from USA Today, CBS Sports, Yahoo, Athlon and Sporting News.
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