HOUSTON — Conner Weigman had to cut out the Frenchy’s Chicken. It might be a Houston staple, but Weigman is trying to feel athletic this spring. He’s down 10 pounds since transferring to Houston from Texas A&M, an effort to recapture the speed he had before suffering a foot fracture in 2023.
Houston is home for Weigman. He grew up 40 minutes from the Cougars’ campus and would go with his dad to watch Case Keenum break record after record at Robertson Stadium.
There’s a comfort in coming home. It’s where the former five-star recruit and one-time next Aggies superstar to remind people that he’s, well, still him after losing his starting job to Marcel Reed at Texas A&M.
“I’m just getting back to the way I know I can play,” Weigman said. “That top quarterback in the class. I’m going to prove it this year.”
To understand what went sideways for Weigman in College Station, you must understand the full extent of his injuries.
Weigman is matter of fact about his injury. It happened in Week 4. Weigman, a sophomore, began the 2023 season averaging 300 yards a game and completing 70.5% of his passes. He had the fourth-highest PFF grade in the country through three games.
Then his foot got stuck in the ground as he was hit by an Auburn defender. His talus bone broke in nine places and needed screws to piece it back together.
The injury cost him the rest of the year as the Aggies stumbled to a 7-6 record, resulting in Jimbo Fisher’s firing late in the season.
“Saturdays were the worst,” Weigman said. “I love being out with my guys. I just love it. Not being out there was tough.”
That feeling influenced how Weigman handled his next injury.
It took only three quarters for bad injury luck to strike again the next season. Weigman, who won the starting job under new coach Mike Elko, ran on the goal line against Notre Dame in a season-opening top 25-showdown. He got popped on his right throwing shoulder, injuring his AC joint.
The Aggies’ new coaching staff wanted Weigman to rest and recover ahead of SEC play, but he’d already sat for a whole year and was well aware of how the fan base criticized his performance (12 for 30, 100 yards, 2 INTs) against the Fighting Irish.
Weigman wouldn’t — couldn’t — sit again.
He took a Toradol shot that week to numb the pain, but throwing mechanics are a delicate thing. Weigman had to overcompensate for his injured shoulder, so he put extra pressure on his bicep. He had to exit at halftime against McNeese State because of a strain.
Weigman didn’t throw for three weeks after that. He needed a steroid shot in his shoulder just to get movement back. He returned a month later against Missouri and gritted out arguably the second-best performance of his career (18 for 22, 276 yards against a top-10 team). The rest of the season would be just a series of Toradol shots to stay available.
Ultimately, his throwing mechanics out of whack, Weigman found himself benched in favor Reed.
Reed then took the status Weigman had held for three years: the future of Texas A&M football.
Weigman, who’s still working to get his shoulder back to 100%, opted to enter the transfer portal at the end of the season in hopes of reminding people he’s still the same player who ranked as the No. 3 overall QB in the 2022 class, just behind current superstars Drew Allar (Penn State) and Cade Klubnik (Clemson)
Syracuse wanted him in the portal. Weigman knew Orange associate head coach Elijah Robinson, who was Texas A&M’s interim head coach in 2023. But New York felt far from home for a Texan.
Houston, though? That could work.
It helped the Weigman family had some insight into Cougars coach Willie Fritz, who had coached Weigman’s dad, Chad, at Sam Houston in 1991.
Said the now 64-year-old Fritz of Chad Weigman: “He was just a really nice young man. Obviously, he’s a bit older now.”
That connection bred comfort, as did the presence of Houston QB coach Shawn Bell, who began recruiting Weigman as a member of Baylor‘s staff when Weigman was in ninth grade.
Weigman only needed one visit — an unofficial visit at that — to shut down his process. He met with Bell for four hours, discussing what Bell wanted in a quarterback and how Weigman wanted to be coached. Weigman loved that Bell, a former Baylor signal-caller, understood everything that goes into playing the position.
“I was ecstatic when I walked out the building,” Weigman said.
When thinking back on his time at Texas A&M — 13 starts over three seasons that included top-25 wins, injuries and a benching – Weigman learned that difference between elite production and fan scorn is small. A tweak in mechanics to compensate for an injury can be the difference between shredding Missouri and being benched against LSU two weeks later.
“It’s minute,” Weigman said. “Millimeters.”
Back home in Houston, Weigman hopes to show people how different his career can be with slightly different circumstances. It’s why he’s cut down 10 pounds. It’s why he chose a program that went 4-8 last season over a flashier fit. He knows people are doubting him. He knows his five-star status may seem like a decade ago. But one healthy season can change perception in an instant.
“He’s been through it as far as complex offenses and playing complex defenses,” Fritz said. “He just needs to be healthy.”
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