Former Georgia Southern coach Willie Fritz, now at Houston, is coming home. That’s big news, of course, but what about the team he is bringing with him.

Well, it’s a pretty good one. Maybe the best team the Eagles have ever faced at hallowed Paulson Stadium where dreams of success have often turned into a nightmare for opponents.

The chance for an upset against the first Power 4 team to play at Paulson are not high. Oddsmakers have made Houston an 18.5-point favorite for the 4 p.m. game, which will be televised on ESPNU.

Georgia Southern will be trying to avoid its first 1-3 start since 2019 under Chad Lunsford. That team, it should be noted, rallied to go 7-5 before losing to Liberty in the Cure Bowl.

The Cougars (2-1) are coming off a gut-wrenching 28-26 loss at Texas Tech and can ill afford another loss if they wish to stay in the race for a berth in the college football playoffs. That and winning the Big 12 championship are the primary goals for Fritz’s third Houston team.

With what’s at stake for it on a national level and the fact their coach is playing against a team he once coached there’s little chance Houston will get caught looking ahead in its final non-conference game of the season.

At his weekly press conference Fritz spoke warmly of his time in Statesboro saying he and his family had many fond memories but that would all be put aside once the ball was kicked off.

“It’s a work trip,” Fritz said. “In 10 or 15 years I’ll retire and go back and watch a homecoming game. But this is a business trip.”

Fritz is not the only Houston-Georgia Southern connection.

Eagles head coach Clay Helton is a Houston graduate where he played quarterback for his father, Kim, who was the then Cougars head coach. Defensive coordinator Mike Mutz was on Fritz’s staff at Georgia Southern and went with him to Tulane.

Then there are the quarterbacks: The Eagles’ Max Johnson and Houston’s Conner Weigman were teammates at Texas A&M before both hit the transfer portal.

At the time, A&M had a quarterback room of riches as former Georgia Tech great Haynes King was also with the Aggies. After Haynes departed Johnson and Weigman were then joined by current A&M starter Marcel Reed.

Johnson, incidentally, had a string of 218 consecutive passes without an interception snapped in last Saturday’s 31-24 loss at Jacksonville State. Johnson’s last pick had come in the second quarter of North Carolina’s season opener at Minnesota in 2024.

That was also the game where Johnson suffered a season-ending broken leg. For his career at LSU, A&M, Carolina and now Georgia Southern the veteran quarterback has been intercepted only 14 times in 1,009 attempts. He has 618 completions for 7,067 yards and 51 touchdowns.

While Johnson’s career has been sidetracked by injuries, Weigman’s has flourished under the tutelage of Fritz.

After passing for 2,711 yards and 25 touchdowns last year in his first year at Houston, the Cougar gunslinger is off to another excellent start, throwing for 708 yards this season, going 56-of-80 with one interception.

The Cougars are not all Weigman and an aerial attack, however, as they feature what in all probability is the most balanced offense in college football: Houston is averaging 264 yards per game through the air and 263.3 on the ground.

Leading the rushing attack is Makhi Hughes with 213 yards. Hughes came to Houston from Tulane where he ran for more than 1,300 yards each of the last two seasons after being recruited by Fritz.

Houston’s offensive line is led by center Anthony Boswell, who Fritz called the best center he’s had in 34 years as a head coach, and left guard Shadre Hurst who is from Cartersville, Ga.

Hurst, a fifth-year player who is considered to be the best ever Houston lineman in the modern era, has excelled as a pass blocker. Going into the season he had allowed only one sack in four years as a starter.

Weigman has a dangerous receiving corps led by wide receiver Amare Thomas with 18 catches for 237 yards and three touchdowns and tight end Patrick Overmeyer with 16 for 173 yards and two scores. Not to be overlooked is wide receiver Koby Young who has only six catches but they covered 149 yards and were good for three touchdowns.

Houston has what it believes to be the best secondary in the Big 12 in cornerbacks Javion White, Jalen Mayo and Will James. Overall, the Cougars are allowing 319 yards per game.

The Cougars will be looking for a big win to help erase the bitter taste of last week’s loss at Texas Tech that saw Weighman come up inches short on a two-point conversion attempt which would have forced overtime.

“A big part of this game is who scores touchdowns instead of kicking field goals,” Fritz said. “It’s hard to get down there and when you get down there you want to maximize it and score touchdowns. We just didn’t do that on a couple of occasions.

“When you play a close ball game like that you have to play error free and we did not. We played OK, but not our best.”