“Houston Top-Tier CB” Itching To Return To Field After Missing 2023, Out Due To Brutal Football Rules

The air around TDECU Stadium on fall Saturdays was filled with the enticing scents of tailgate grills and the exhaust from band and equipment buses, but the most dominant aroma was the excitement of game day.

Saturdays in Houston, TX, were the highlight of the week, and the fall of 2023 felt especially different. The Houston Cougars celebrated their long-awaited entry into the Big 12 after a thirty-year quest to join their Texas peers following the Southwest Conference’s breakup in the mid-1990s. This excitement was palpable among the fans, as average home attendance surged from 24,793 to 36,020.

However, for Houston cornerback Latrell McCutchin, these fall Saturdays were marked by feelings of dread, sadness, and despair.

“It was the worst day of the week,” McCutchin said. “I cried. I would cry all the way up until we would run out of the tunnel. Then we’d go in at halftime and I would cry some more. Knowing that you should be able to play and knowing that it’s out of your control, it was something that really was hard for me to deal with at first. But I kind of needed that year. It taught me a lot.”

McCutchin transferred to Houston in late June 2023, over two months after spring football had ended. The former 4-star recruit originally committed to Oklahoma out of high school and spent one season there in 2021 before following head coach Lincoln Riley to USC in 2022. However, transferring again without an undergraduate degree made McCutchin ineligible per NCAA rules, forcing him to sit out the entire 2023 season. This meant a long year of practices without the chance to play in front of the 36,000 Cougar fans.

“Last year taught me that no matter what happens, at the end of the day, I got me,” McCutchin said. “I control my destiny and I control what I can do. Learning how to control what you can control, that’s something that saved me and saved my career. At the end of the day, I could have taken last year and I could have BS’d every rep. Knowing that I wasn’t gonna play on Saturday, I didn’t have to go hard, but I did and that really made me better.”

During home games, McCutchin walked the sidelines in street clothes, and for away games, he wasn’t part of the travel team. Yet, when at TDECU Stadium, his hunger to play was evident, especially to outside linebacker Jamal Morris, who played with McCutchin at Oklahoma in 2021.

“Seeing him come in as that hungry freshman (at Oklahoma), not taking ‘no’ for an answer, he still has that same mindset, but he’s way more mature,” Morris said. “Both of us are fathers now. That’s how much time has passed, but now he’s way more adamant about what he does and way more detailed about what he does. He’s stepping into this leadership role and he’s doing well. Last year, you could see in his eyes that he really wanted to play. I’d come to the sideline and he would be like, ‘Bro, I could have made that play,’ so I know he has a lot of hunger built up in him for this season coming up.”

After enduring a challenging fall and starting anew with head coach Willie Fritz and a new coaching staff, McCutchin embraced a fresh start in 2024. The new staff quickly recognized his leadership qualities, and he was selected as one of four Cougars to represent the program at Big 12 Media Days in early July.

“I come to work every day, I’ve been the same person every day,” McCutchin said. “Even when I wasn’t playing, I practiced like I was playing every Saturday. Having that mindset and the confidence to go out there and practice every day and really hone in on my abilities and get better at what I wanted to do personally was something I wanted to do last year, and I think that really carried over to this year because it made me a much better leader.”

McCutchin attributes some of his leadership skills to the various coaching staffs he’s worked with at his three collegiate stops. He spent two seasons under Lincoln Riley—one at Oklahoma and one at USC. While sitting out last fall, he worked with the staff of former Houston head coach Dana Holgorsen. Now in his fourth year of college football, he’s under his third head coach, Willie Fritz, learning valuable traits from each.

“Having different coaches, they all have different mindsets and different ways of going about things,” McCutchin said. “As far as being a pro, I learned a lot about that from Coach Riley. As far as coming to work and being the same person every day and being precise in everything that you do and honing in on details, I feel like I learned that from Coach Fritz. And I feel like I learned a lot from Coach Dana Holgorsen in the sense that Coach Holg was always there for us and never really focused too much on other teams. He wanted everything to be about us.”

Fritz noticed McCutchin’s attention to detail, which significantly improved the cornerback’s game during their first spring together. At Oklahoma and USC, McCutchin had only three starts and 31 tackles, but his performance in practice since arriving in Houston has shown his potential for a breakout season.

“Latrell, nobody really knows about because he was ineligible last year and I think he’s gonna have a great season for us,” Fritz said. “He’s got a lot of ability. He’s tall, he’s long, he’s fast, and he can tackle which is important for that position. I’ve been very, very impressed with him as a corner. I think he’s gonna be one of the top corners in the conference.”

McCutchin’s chance to prove Fritz right starts next month. He’s eagerly anticipating Houston’s Aug. 31, 2024 opener at TDECU Stadium against UNLV. Not having played a game since Jan. 1, 2023, when he was with USC, McCutchin is excited about running out of the TDECU Stadium tunnel to a cheering crowd.

“Thinking about the fact that I haven’t played a game in a year and a half, it’s crazy to think this could have even been me, but it is, and that’s my reality,” McCutchin said. “I think about football all day every day and just having that thought and knowing I do have the chance to play as long as I stay healthy is something that I’m overly excited about.”

Another reason McCutchin is eager to return to the field is the rare opportunity to play alongside his brother. His younger brother, Latreveon McCutchin, debuted as a linebacker for the Cougars last season, recording 10 tackles in 12 games. Part of Latrell’s decision to transfer to Houston was to play with Latreveon.

“There’s a few guys maybe on the same team with their brother, but I don’t think there’s too many of them that played on the same side of the field, so we could actually be on the field at the same time,” Latrell McCutchin said. “That’s something that’s really exciting and that’s something that could fuel my brother to work a little harder and fuel me as well to work a little harder. At the end of the day, I do want to play with my brother and that was part of the deciding factor to choose Houston.”