The Houston Cougars football program is an NCAA Division I FBS football team that represents the University of Houston. The team is commonly referred to as "Houston" or "UH". The UH football program is a member of the Big 12 Conference. Since the 2014 season, the Cougars have played their home games on campus at TDECU Stadium, which was built on the site formerly occupied by Robertson Stadium, where they played home games from 1941 to 1950 and from 1997 to 2012. Over the history of the program, the Cougars have won eleven conference championships and have had several players elected to the College Football Hall of Fame, including a Heisman Trophy winner.

The University of Houston is a public research university in Houston, Texas. It was established in 1927 as Houston Junior College, one of multiple junior college institutions formed in the first decades of the 20th century. In 1934, HJC was restructured as a four-year degree-granting institution and renamed as the University of Houston. Today, Houston is the fourth-largest university in Texas, awarding 11,156 degrees in 2023. It has a worldwide alumni base of nearly 200,000.