Houston’s Week 4 game against Georgia Southern isn’t just your typical non-conference matchup. It brings a lot of memories back for both head coaches in this game.
While Georgia Southern coach Clay Helton used to play at Houston from 1994-95 under his father Kim Helton, Houston coach Willie Fritz used to be the head coach at Georgia Southern for two seasons from 2014-15.
This is Fritz’s first return to Statesboro, Georgia, as a head coach and it is also Houston’s first-ever matchup against Georgia Southern. Fritz’s team becomes the first Power Four program to ever travel out to Statesboro.
This becomes quite the reunion matchup, and Fritz reflected on his time as the coach of the Eagles during his weekly press conference on Monday.
“Phenomenal place, great people. My wife and I really enjoyed our stay in Statesboro, Georgia,” Fritz said. “They’ve got a lot of great traditions. I’m very proud. When we came in there, I think we were picked last in the conference. We were going from a Division I-AA league to the Sun Belt and we’re the only team in NCAA history to win the conference championship in an undefeated manner first year.”
Division I-AA is typically known as the FCS (Football Championship Subdivision. While Marshall dominated the Mid-American Conference (MAC) in its first year and won it in 1997, it did lose one conference game.
Georgia Southern won the Sun Belt in 2014 with an 8-0 conference record and 9-3 mark overall.
“What I was running offensively at the time was a perfect fit for what they’d been running,” Fritz said.
There’s a reason why many across college football view Fritz as someone who can turn a program around. In 2015, Georgia Southern went 8-4 with a 6-2 conference record. The school made its first NCAA postseason bowl game with a berth in the 2015 GoDaddy.com Bowl. Fritz went 17-7 overall in his two seasons there.
“I inherited a really good program from Coach Monken, who’s the head coach at Army now. We’ve just got great memories,” Fritz said. “One of my old players is getting inducted into their Hall of Fame on Friday night. I wish I could go.”
That player is former NFL running back Matt Breida, who spent seven seasons in the league after being undrafted. He notably spent his first three seasons with the San Francisco 49ers from 2017-19. Brieda was at Georgia Southern from 2013-16 and Fritz’s two years overlapped with his. 2014 and 2015 under Fritz were his two best seasons; he was first-team all-conference and ran for over 3000 yards total.
Brieda had played under Jerick McKinnon in 2013 and came out and impressed Fritz in the first spring camp he ran in 2014.
Fritz also mentioned one of his former players is also the head coach at Statesboro High School now.
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