ESPN’s College GameDay will head to Salt Lake City for Utah vs. Houston, a premier Big 12 showdown, in Week 8 of the college football season, On3’s Pete Nakos confirmed. The Cougars (6-1) and Utes (6-0) will battle for the top of the conference, outside of Texas Tech.
Utah edged out Colorado 27-24 in Boulder Saturday night, narrowly avoiding the upset at the hands of Deion Sanders and crew. Head coach Morgan Scalley tipped his cap to the Buffaloes for making it a dog fight all night long.
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“Credit to Coach Sanders and Colorado for the way they competed and fought,” Scalley said postgame. “I knew going into this game I thought this was going to be a battle, particularly on defense and how stout they were. Looking at this game, I think you look at really all metrics that matter and I don’t know that we should’ve won this game outside of the score.
“Some big plays made in this game down the stretch, James Chenault with the interception, Creed Whittmore with a huge catch, Brock Fonoimoana on the recovery on the onside kick, Dilllon Curtis being 100 percent on his field goals. That was huge come to find out, but you find a way to get a win. You look across college football today like I said, every week, winning is hard and we’re fortunate enough to be on the winning side. I’m proud of the way our guys fought to the end and we came away with a win.”
Houston won a thriller over Oklahoma State on Saturday to get their sixth win under Willie Fritz this season. With the victory, Fritz is now 20-12 with the Cougars since 2024 and went 10-3 lat year, finishing No. 22 in the country.
“We had to stay aggressive,” Fritz said postgame. “We knew we were going to stop them three or four times in a row. They’re good, very good offensively. We just had to keep going. I thought Conner [Weigman] got better as the game progressed. He had a couple big runs there at the end that allowed us to take knees.
“That was a really big first down conversion and ending to the game. We were in fourth down territory that whole time. We were going to stay at 4th & 7 and we would have gone for it. So, a really excellent job. I’ve had to play calls by Slade [Nagle], and I just thought, a really good game plan, and a great execution by the players.”
With the way both of these teams are playing, it’s no wonder College GameDay will make its return to Utah’s campus. They visited on November 1t last year when Utah took on Cincinnati and were just in Provo for BYU–Notre Dame this past weekend.
