#87 Houston

Houston, TX

TDECU Stadium

September 5, 2026

Houston 33 - Oregon State 20 (ESPN Recap)

Logistics were smooth making it out of Detroit Saturday morning on a 6:10am flight on down to HTown. Dropped bags at hotel and kept the meter running for dropoff at TDECU stadium 2 hours before kickoff. Solid pregame energy even for an 11am CT kickoff: fan zones and Greek life parties with hundreds of students ready to cheer on the Cougs!

Eddie and Brittney hooked it up thanks to Gretchen, and I was on the field pregame. Took some trenches videos, pictures of the superstar WR1 and the two QBs, and melted in the 93 degree and 75% humidity with no shade.

CJ Glover is going to my favorite player in a few years wherever he ends up playing and is definitely my favorite HS football player. Look at what t-shirt this dude was wearing to the

sideline for the game today!

I forgot to bet this game before kickoff but live bet Oregon St +18.5 mid Q1 and cashed that pretty easily. OSU legit could have won the game as they pulled within 6 with 5 mins left and were defending a 3rd and 6 from around mid-field. Houston went back to Amare Thomas who was far and away the best player on the field today. Thomas also had 3 catches on the opening drive for 50 yards and a TD and

looked like a poor man’s Ja’Marr Chase, which is a big compliment to him.

TDECU is a real stadium. Definitely belonging of a Big 12 stadium. Their lounge had the nicest food spread of any CFB lounge set up for the masses. Air conditioned with fresh sauteed shrimp, a pretzel bar, popcorn bar, burger bar, cash bar, and other tables with fruits and cheeses etc. I watched the 1H from my seats, but halftime, the weather delay, and all of Q3 I was in the lounge. Luckily, I returned to

my seats for Q4 where the three 30-something OSU fans sitting amidst 500 Houston fans were hilarious. Just good natured “we suck but are going to taunt you because this game is close and you aren’t covering the spread” fun.

Amare finished with 8 for 133 and the early touchdown. Felt like they held it back a little with him. He’s a real weapon and will be playing on Sundays. Check out this TD replay:

Probably the craziest moment of the game was in the opening series. UH's defense did a great job holding Oregon St to a 3 and out. The crowd was rocking. And right before the snap for the punt, the refs blew the whistle dead for a pitch intruder!

Booked it out of Houston to walk to the nearest sports bar between UH and Rice. Turns out, Houston is sneaky spread out like Vegas and it was still really hot after the game. The walk through Texas Southern’s campus to get to The Locker Room was not quite as hot as the pregame on field, but close and I heavily regretted not spending $12 on an Uber. Loved the Locker Room and being the only white human there. The two bartenders were super nice and great multi-taskers: playing a game of football with a full size football, while tending to me and the tables, while watching the Longhorns dismantle Texas State on TV.

Learned my lesson and took a Lyft to Rice’s campus an hour before scheduled kickoff with The Louisville Lip himself.

They wouldn’t let me in the stadium due to weather delay #2 of the day which pushed back the start time, so I walked to Little Woodrows bar around the corner and watched the end of the Oregon/Boise game there.