There's a particular kind of validation that arrives before a single snap of a season is played, and on Monday, Pro Football Network delivered it to Houston football in bulk. Five Cougars were tabbed to the publication's Preseason All-Big 12 teams, a haul headlined by wide receiver Amare Thomas' first-team nod and rounded out by four third-team selections—a trio of new offensive linemen and a defensive back who has quietly become one of the steadiest players in the league.
It's the kind of list that used to skip over Houston. Not anymore.
The Headliner
Start with Thomas, because everyone else in the Big 12 already has to. A late-season addition to the Biletnikoff Award Watch List a year ago, the Birmingham, Ala., native turned that momentum into a full-blown All-American campaign in 2025—966 receiving yards and 12 touchdown catches, numbers that hadn't been touched by a Cougar receiver since Tank Dell torched the league in 2022. This wasn't a compiler's stat line, either. Thomas made his living down the field, hauling in six touchdowns of 20-plus yards and three of 50-plus, the kind of splash-play resume that shows up on cutups sent to every secondary Houston will face this fall.A first-team preseason selection isn't a participation trophy. It's a target on his back, and Thomas has spent the better part of a year proving he can carry one.
Building in the Trenches
If Thomas is the name Big 12 defensive coordinators are circling in red ink, the three offensive linemen joining him on the list are the reason he might see fewer double-teams than he'd expect. Houston overhauled its front this offseason, and all three new starters arrived with hardware already attached to their names.
Shadre Hurst is the headliner of the group, already stamped onto the Outland Trophy Preseason Watch List, the award reserved for the best interior lineman in the country, offense or defense. Hurst's move to Houston is really a reunion: he follows head coach Willie Fritz and offensive line coach Eman Naghavi from Tulane, where he was an All-American, a freshman All-American, and a fixture of a Green Wave program that won three conference titles during his time there. The tape backs up the pedigree. Hurst was the highest-graded offensive lineman in the American Athletic Conference last season and the sixth-highest-graded guard in the country by PFF, having allowed just a single sack across four college seasons.
Center Anthony Boswell brings a similar résumé from a different direction. Named to the Rimington Trophy Preseason Watch List—given annually to the nation's top center—Boswell was a Freshman All-American at Toledo before transferring in this January. He started all 12 games for the Rockets last season, didn't allow a single sack, and graded out as the 10th-best center in the FBS in PFF's overall rankings and third-best in run-blocking. That came after an earlier transfer from Purdue, a path that's led him to lock down the middle of Houston's line entering 2026.
Rounding out the trio is Drew Terrill, arriving from Miami (Ohio) after a 2025 All-MAC Second-Team season in which he posted the conference's second-best offensive grade among linemen. The right tackle's game travels in both directions—his run-block grade led all MAC tackles at 76.7, and his pass-block grade ranked second in the league. Terrill had already been tabbed to Athlon Sports' Preseason All-Big 12 Fourth Team earlier in the offseason; PFN's recognition adds another line to a résumé that's growing by the week.
Three transfers, three watch lists or preseason honors, and one rebuilt offensive line—that's not a coincidence. That's a coaching staff hitting the portal with a plan.
The Steady Hand
Then there's Kentrell Webb, the one name on this list who didn't have to change zip codes to earn it. The Katy, Texas, native enters his third season in Houston off a 2025 campaign that netted him Athlon Sports All-Big 12 Fourth-Team honors and the third-most tackles on the roster — 71 of them — from the safety spot. It's the second consecutive season Webb has cleared 50 tackles, and he's done it while barely leaving the field: 25 straight starts for the Cougars dating back to 2024.
Defensive backs rarely get the marquee treatment wide receivers and blindside protectors do. Webb's inclusion here is a reminder that Big 12 voters noticed anyway.
What It Adds Up To
None of these five honors decide anything by themselves; preseason lists are projections, not proof. But taken together, they sketch the outline of a Houston program that's stopped rebuilding and started building. A go-up-and-get-it receiver who can already be had on Sunday if he wants it in a year or two. A brand-new offensive line stitched together from three different rosters that all happened to produce first-team-caliber talent. A defensive back who's simply never left the lineup.
Fritz has made a habit of collecting proven pieces. Hurst, Boswell, and Terrill all played winning football somewhere else before Houston came calling and blending them with players like Thomas and Webb, who developed on campus. Monday's Preseason All-Big 12 list is the clearest evidence yet that the formula is working.
The Cougars will have to prove it once the pads come on for real. But for one August afternoon, at least, the league is watching Houston for the right reasons.
