UH student creates inspired Tom Herman shirt

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- University of Houston head coach, Tom Herman, is the hottest name in college football coaching.

He will be on the top of every coaching vacancy in the country this off-season. LSU is already in the market for a coach, and the University of Texas, plus Southern California could potentially open up.

UH fans are doing everything in their power to keep their head coach in Houston.

Leah Hunt is a junior at UH and a diehard University of Houston fan. She is the brainchild of the Tom Herman "Come and take him," shirt, which was created as a joke to all the schools trying to steal the UH head coach.

"When LSU fired their head coach, one of my friends posted an article on how they were going to try to poach Coach Herman. He said we need to do something to let Coach Herman know we appreciate him," said Hunt. "I joked, someone needs to make a come and take him shirt with Herman's face instead of the cannon. I know how to use Photoshop. So I made a shirt, and it blew up from there."

The idea caught on and quickly became viral.

Next Cole Swartz created the GoFundme page, and reached out to Leah to partner up. The goal was to turn the shirt into a reality, and give them away to students at the November 17th game against Louisville. "I don't think she expected it to blow up like it did," said Swartz.

"I talked with some people and we thought to do it like they do in the NBA. We thought it would be cool if we did something along those lines at a Houston home game and it took off from there.

At last check, they had raised $20,715. The university is aware, and has had some input, but this is totally fan driven. "Some people are saying we don't deserve to be in the Big 12, because our fan base isn't supportive but we raised $20,000 in a week, showing our coach that we care," said Hunt.

The campaign runs through October 18th, but it could be extended. All the proceeds go to the production costs of the shirts, with any leftover going to the Cougar Pride Fund.