These are good times in the city of Houston, if you’re a sports fan. All three of the major sports landscape staple teams are either playoff teams or in the mix for the playoffs. The Texans are preparing for a third consecutive postseason, the Rockets were the 2-seed in the West last year, and the Astros missed the postseason for the first time since 2017, and that was by just one game.
Meanwhile, the two marquee programs at the University of Houston are both very healthy. Kelvin Sampson’s basketball program is the envy of 99 percent of college basketball, and Willie Fritz’s football program just completed a 10-win season, the first for the Coogs since 2021.
Add in the final ingredient, the city’s place on the international event radar, with the World Baseball Classic and soccer’s World Cup coming here in 2026, and now is a phenomenal time to be a Houston sports fan. So, with the new year upon us, the question is “What were the biggest Houston sports stories of 2025?”
Here is one man’s opinion on this topic:
5. Texans fire Bobby Slowik
When C.J. Stroud won the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year award in 2023, it looked like the beginning of a beautiful marriage between him and offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik, in which the two would dominate the AFC for the next several seasons, or until Slowik nabbed a head coaching job. Well, 2024 went much differently, with the league seemingly catching up to Slowik, and with a sieve-like offensive line getting C.J. Stroud killed (54 sacks allowed). In the end, DeMeco Ryans had to fire one of his best friends, which may have been his toughest test as head coach up to that point.
4. Coogs come within a bucket of a title
The college basketball landscape, like football, has shifted and altered in this new age of the transfer portal and NIL money, but one constant has been Kelvin Sampson’s University of Houston teams doing two things — winning and making life miserable for opponents. In 2025, Sampson performed his finest postseason work, getting to within two points of a championship, and beating Duke in an instant classic in the semifinals.
3. Astros’ postseason streak ends at eight seasons
It’s been an amazing run for the better part of this last decade, being a Houston Astros fan. However, in 2025, it was a lot of frustration and stress, caused mostly by a spate of injuries that made the Astros look more like a MASH unit than a Major League Baseball team. Yordan Alvarez missed 114 games, and four pitchers underwent Tommy John surgery, and that’s honestly just the beginning. In the end, the Astros finished out of the postseason for the first time since 2017. One bright spot — the return of Carlos Correa after three-plus seasons in Minnesota.
2. Texans come back from 0-3 to make playoffs
Throughout the 2000s in the NFL, up until last Saturday, one team had come back from an 0-3 start to make the postseason, and that was actually the Houston Texans in 2018 under Bill O’Brien. After an 0-3 start to this season, there was not a ton of confidence in DeMeco Ryans and his team pulling off the same feat, but here we are. The Texans are currently on an 11-2 run, including wins in their last eight games. Along the way, they’ve managed to pull off wins over the Jaguars, Bills, Colts, Chiefs, and Chargers. The Texans have their best chance at a deep playoff run this postseason.
- The Kevin Durant trade
Even before the trade for the future Hall of Famer, Kevin Durant, you could argue that the Rockets were executing their rebuild about as flawlessly as you could in today’s NBA. They’d hit on most of their first round picks the last few years, and added the perfect mix of veterans to help set the culture. They’d hit got to the 2-seed in the West with that group. Then came the Durant trade, right in the middle of a Durant appearance at Fanatics Fest last summer. The Rockets are off to a decent start this season, at 20-10, and seem primed to be one of the last team’s standing, now that they have a go-to guy, aside from Alperen Sengun, in the waning moments of games.
This article appears in Private: Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2026.