Phil Steele All-Big 12 Honors Include Nine Houston Cougars

At TDECU Stadium in Houston, offseason football talk picked up again after nine Houston Cougars landed Phil Steele All-Big 12 preseason honors. The national preseason nod gives Willie Fritz and his roster another marker of talent as the program heads toward its second season in the Big 12.

Preseason lists do not win games, but they do show where outside evaluators see proven production and upside. For Houston, placing nine players on the Phil Steele All-Big 12 preseason teams shows the roster has more recognized depth than many expected after a coaching change and a rough 2023 season.

Phil Steele All-Big 12 honors put nine Cougars in the spotlight

The headline number matters here. Houston had nine players selected across Phil Steele's preseason All-Big 12 teams, a solid showing for a team trying to climb in a deep conference that includes programs with far more recent success.

Those honors matter because Phil Steele's preseason teams are widely cited across college football media each summer. They are not official conference awards, but they carry weight in the sport's preview cycle and help frame which players could shape the early conversation when camp opens.

For Houston, this kind of recognition also adds to the early tone around Fritz's first season. The Cougars are still building continuity, but nine preseason conference selections suggest the roster has enough returning talent to be competitive in key spots.

Why the Cougars benefit from preseason recognition

Recognition like this helps on multiple fronts. It highlights players already on campus, gives the coaching staff more credibility during recruiting conversations, and reminds the rest of the league that Houston still has individual talent capable of earning conference-level attention.

It also gives local context to a program trying to reestablish itself after a difficult debut season in the Big 12. Houston has spent the offseason resetting under Fritz, and any sign of traction matters as the Cougars work toward becoming tougher, cleaner, and more reliable each week.

College football previews can lean heavily on brand names, so a nine-player haul is worth noting for a program outside the conference's top tier. Houston still has to prove it on the field, but entering camp with this many all-conference picks gives the roster a stronger starting point than last year's results might suggest.

Houston enters camp with established talent on the roster

The next step is translating preseason respect into production once practices begin and the schedule gets real. Houston's staff now has a group of players carrying visible preseason expectations, and that tends to sharpen the conversation around starting jobs, leadership roles, and impact positions.

Training camp and the season opener will show how much this recognition means in the standings. For now, the Cougars have nine preseason All-Big 12 selections on the board, and that gives the program a concrete offseason win in the middle of a reset year.

This article is a summary of reporting by Sports Illustrated. Read the full story here.