What Willie Fritz said after Houston's loss to Arizona

The Cougars struggled to generate any offense in a 27-3 loss

Houston Cougars head coach Willie Fritz yells towards players as they come back to the sidelines during the second quarter against the Arizona Wildcats at Arizona Stadium. / Aryanna Frank-Imagn Images

Coming off a bye week, the Houston Cougars looked to be in a perfect position to pick up their third win in four games on Friday night vs. Arizona.

Instead the Cougars never got off the bus. Willie Fritz's team was soundly beaten by the Wildcats, 27-3, in game that was over in the third quarter.

"First of all congratulations to Arizona. They did a really good job with the preparation and obviously we didn't," Fritz said after the game. "We've been doing a good job of playing smart and being plus turnover-takeaway, and we did not do that tonight. We had some foolish penalties. Guys trying to do too much, not doing their job."

Houston (4-6, 3-4) dropped to 11th in the Big 12 and now has to win its final two games to become bowl eligible. Those games are at home vs. Baylor and on the road at No. 6 BYU.

Houston trailed just 10-3 at halftime, but failed to generate any offense in the second half. This was the Cougars' second-half drive chart: punt, turnover on downs, punt, turnover on downs, punt, fumble.

The most revealing stat was their inability to convert on third and fourth down: Houston was 2-of-13 on third down and 0-of-4 on fourth down.

Here are the highlights from Fritz's postgame press conference:

Fritz on his team's overall performance

Houston quarterback Zeon Chriss (2) was 16-of-27 for 191 yards and an interception in Houston's loss to Arizona. He also rushed 18 times for 55 yards. / Aryanna Frank-Imagn Images

"As I've said many times before we've got to play real good in all three phases in order to have a chance to win and we did not play very good. We played all right defensively and then, second half, we gave up couple big ones. Just disappointed how we played. I thought we were better prepared than that."

Fritz on falling to 0-2 coming off bye weeks

"We haven't played well. Thank goodness we don't have another open week. We're gonna have to look and see what we did poorly."

Fritz on Houston's third down struggles

"We're just having a tough time in third down situations ... with protections and we're just having difficulties in that third and long. ... You don't want to get to third down because you want to have some explosive plays and teams that are really good on offense don't have as many third down situations, but we've got to do a heck of a lot better with our conversion rate than what it was this evening. The way our defense started and got some pressure got some sacks kept them pretty much off the board."

Fritz on starting the second half with another three-and-out

"It's tough. It's one of the things you're looking forward to [coming out of halftime] knowing they had the big field goal at the end of the first half. You know we're receiving the ball and you're hoping you start the second half off well, and we didn't."