HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Ethan Sanchez hit a 41-yard field as time expired to lead Houston to a 31-28 win over Arizona on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Sanchez capped a 13-play, 52-yard drive with the field goal. Houston (6-1, 3-1 Big 12) became bowl-eligible for the first time since 2022 with the win and is off to its best start since 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s one of our goals. You want to play in a bowl game,\u201d Houston coach Willie Fritz said wearing a \u201cBowl Bound\u201d T-shirt postgame. \u201cI\u2019ve never been to a bad one. I\u2019ve been to a bunch of them. They\u2019re all good. So, we\u2019re excited about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conner Weigman went 15-of-23 passing for 164 yards and three touchdowns. He also rushed for 98 yards and a touchdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t been bowl-eligible in a couple years, so to be able to go back to a bowl, that\u2019s an awesome opportunity for this program,\u201d Weigman said. \u201cThat was a four-quarter dogfight. They stayed in the game and fought.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weigman threw touchdown passes of 52 and 15 yards and rushed for a 10-yard score in the first half as Houston took a 21-14 halftime lead.<\/p>\n
Dean Connors rushed for 100 yards on 20 carries for the Cougars, who outgained Arizona 396-381 yards, including 232-112 rushing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re running the ball better,\u201d Fritz said. \u201cWe\u2019re doing a much better job of running the football. We struggled with it. They\u2019ve done a pretty good job of playing a good run defense here lately.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weigman threw a 2-yard touchdown pass to Amare Thomas with six minutes left in the third quarter to put the Cougars up 14.<\/p>\n
Arizona (4-3, 1-3) cut the lead to seven on a 3-yard touchdown run by Tre Spivey to start the fourth quarter, and tied it at 28 on a 2-yard touchdown run by Kedrick Reescano with 4:48 left.<\/p>\n
Arizona coach Brent Brennan called it \u201ca tough day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis team is hurting right now,\u201d Brennan said. \u201cYou lose on the last play of the game. You lose in double overtime (last week against BYU).”<\/p>\n
Noah Fifita finished 24 of 26 for 269 yards and two touchdowns. Fifita threw touchdown passes of 70 yards to Spivey and 13 yards to Luke Wysong in the first half.<\/p>\n
The takeaway<\/p>\n
Arizona: The Wildcats had issues stopping Houston on the ground, but also getting the Cougars off the field. The Wildcats have lost three of their last four games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have a made a ton of progress, but to not close that thing out when we had an opportunity to today makes every person in here sick,” Brennan said. “And that starts with me. That\u2019s my job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Houston: The Cougars had issues slowing Fifita, but they did get four sacks and six tackles for loss. Houston finished 10 of 16 on third and fourth downs combined.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Arizona: At Colorado on Nov. 1.<\/p>\n
Houston: At Arizona State next Saturday.<\/p>\n
Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a> and here<\/a> (AP News mobile app). AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Ethan Sanchez hit a 41-yard field as time expired to lead Houston to a 31-28…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":316015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[158891,1428,1369,1318,4345,62,358,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-316014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-arizona-houston-football-score","9":"tag-college-football","10":"tag-college-sports","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-houston","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}