{"id":964690,"date":"2026-08-05T06:54:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T06:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/964690\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T06:54:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T06:54:15","slug":"houston-cougars-ranked-24th-in-usa-today-preseason-coaches-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/964690\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Cougars ranked 24th in USA Today Preseason Coaches Poll"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">HOUSTON \u2013 For just the third time since 1992, the Houston Football program was ranked in the USA Today US LBM Preseason Coaches Poll at #24 in the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">The Cougars are coming off a 10-win season in 2025 which concluded with a Texas Bowl win over LSU.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Houston returns its starting quarterback, Conner Weigman, and his favorite wide receiver threat, Preseason All-Big America selection Amare Thomas, who will look to continue to build on their connection again this season. On defense, three starting defensive backs return with Jordan Allen, Will James and Kentrell Webb primed to hold down the secondary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Thirteen different Cougars have earned preseason accolades with Weigman being named to the Maxwell Award Watch List, Thomas being named a Preseason All-American, and Allen and James earning preseason all-conference accolades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">The Cougars are one of four Big 12 Conference teams that earned a preseason ranking by the FBS coaches. TCU, Arizona, Oklahoma State, Arizona State and Kansas State also earned votes.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 For just the third time since 1992, the Houston Football program was ranked in the USA&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":964691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5298,331,7,5042,49,48,27205],"class_list":["post-964690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-big-12-conference","tag-college-football","tag-football","tag-houston-cougars","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-uh-cougars"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117041591969535005","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=964690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/964691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=964690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=964690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=964690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}