What is Houston Coach Willie Fritz’s Secret Weapon in Recruiting?

How Willie Fritz Recruits Houston’s Home-Grown Talent

After a 2024 season that was derailed by injury, Weigman struggled to find the field in a season where he was projected to be in the Heisman Trophy conversation. Once Marcel Reed was named the Aggies’ full-time starting quarterback, Weigman had to enter the transfer portal if he wanted a chance to prove himself once again. As a Bridgeland High School alum, Weigman had become a household name in the Houston area during his high school days. 

“I’m coming home,” Weigman said in his transfer announcement. “Time to get to work H-Town.”

Players like Weigman are exactly who Fritz targets in the transfer portal, something he focused on during his tenure as Tulane’s head coach. 

“A big secret to our success at Tulane, we had a lot of New Orleans kids who thought the grass was greener someplace else and they found out it was only green,” Fritz said. “They wanted to come back home to mama and where they were familiar. There’s probably going to be some kids that go other places that we might get on the rebound. The portal will be good for us in that regard. I’ve learned — being a head coach at six different places and four different states — you better recruit local because the kids seem to be a lot happier when they’re close to home.”

A glance at the 2026 class Houston has accumulated shows that Fritz’s sentiment towards the transfer portal is not too different from his high school philosophy. The Coogs have landed commitments from five-star quarterback Kristan Henderson out of Legacy the School of Sport Sciences in Spring, four-star athlete Paris Melvin Jr. out of Cy Springs High School and three-star running back John Hebert out of Strake Jesuit, all Houston-grown talent who desire to stay in Space City.

“I want to be a high school program,” Fritz said. “I’d be stupid not to be a high school program in Houston, Texas. We’re going to work hard to recruit kids and get them to stay in the state of Texas, specifically in the city of Houston.”

According to 247Sports, the Coogs currently hold the 40th-ranked 2026 recruiting class.