Houston head coach Willie Fritz will have somewhat of a homecoming of his own when Houston travels to Kansas City this weekend.

The Kansas-Houston football game is homecoming for the Jayhawks, but for Fritz he will be heading back to his hometown. Fritz grew up in Kansas City attending Shawnee Mission Northwest and expects to have a lot of family and friends at the game.

“I'm gonna have a bunch,” Fritz said of people going to the game. “I'll be helping them out with the crowd a little bit. I’ve got a lot of family up there. I’ve got a sister and four brothers that live there in town. My wife's family's from there. I’ve got a lot of good friends that are up in that area.”

Fritz joked during his press conference if anybody has extra tickets to let him know.

He recalled the days where he went to preseason camp under former Kansas City Chiefs head coach Marty Schottenheimer. He said he has been to practices under Andy Reid and was a Chiefs fan.

“I graduated high school a long time ago, and then I coached a year of high school there,” he said. “I was in Central Missouri for a long period of time, and so I was in and out of Kansas City. My whole family, my wife's whole family lives there in Kansas City. I'm the only one who's ventured outside of the city limits. At one time when I was there, I was a Chiefs fan.”

Houston is coming off an upset win on the road over TCU, where they led from start to finish. The Cougars did not score a point in the two games before playing TCU, but the offense came alive after switching quarterbacks.

“I think we've done a good job of playing defensively and staying over the top and not allowing big plays and making it difficult for the opponent to get easy scores,” he said. “Offensively, I thought our last ball game out against TCU, we did some really good things. Running the ball, had some high completion percentage, you know, we did some good things.”

Fritz and Lance Leipold go back several years. Fritz watched the Jayhawks on film and believes luck hasn’t been on their side losing several games where they had the lead in the fourth quarter.

“Number one, they're an excellent program,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of respect for Coach Lance and the great job that he does. I've known him a long time and they've had some tough luck. They really have. I believe they've led; I don't know how many times going into the fourth quarter. It's a bunch, and they've lost by less than a score on a bunch of games.”

The Jayhawks are close to a touchdown favorite, and Fritz said they are going to have to play a game like they did against TCU. The Cougars won the turnover battle 4-0 and got their first Big 12 win.

“They're a very disciplined team,” Fritz said. “They run the ball very effectively. They got their quarterback back healthy, who's really a dynamic player. You know, they don't beat themselves. We're going to have to play extremely well in this game. We’ve got to play complimentary football and do a good job in all three phases to have an opportunity to win.”