READY FOR NEXT STEP
Behind Harris, UTSA defends its C-USA title while eyeing next challenge in AAC
SAN ANTONIO — Frank Harris skipped away from defenders who could not catch him. With the Alamodome in a roar Friday, he skipped over the goal line. And at the end of the night, he skipped off the field into another celebration.
A year earlier, when Harris and the UTSA football team first captivated his hometown by doing what had been unthinkable — winning the school’s first Conference USA championship — it was as if it took everything they had.
After claiming a second consecutive title Friday night, they looked like they needed a bigger challenge.
That challenge is coming. The Roadrunners appear ready for it. And if Harris, their ever-cool senior quarterback, comes back next season to help them face it?
The next time they celebrate a championship, more than a city will be watching.
“It’s been a dream,” UTSA coach Jeff Traylor said after his team beat North Texas 48-27 on Friday, and somehow that doesn’t quite capture how surreal the Roadrunners’ rise has been.
UTSA didn’t even field a Division I team until 2011.
Twelve years ago, they’d never even played a game.
Three years ago, they were 4-8 and stuck in college football irrelevance.
Friday night, a crowd of 41,412 watched them cruise to victory, and the kick of it was how routine the Roadrunners made it all look.
By the standards of Harris, the former standout at Clemens High School in Schertz who has turned into a comeback magician in college, rallying from an early
10-7 deficit was nothing special. Whether he was scooting across the line of scrimmage or flicking the ball to wide-open receivers, he never seemed the least bit bothered while throwing for 341 yards, rushing for 49 yards and accounting for five touchdowns.
“I tried to leave it all out there,” Harris said of what might have been his last game at the Alamodome.
The truth is the Roadrunners would love the most important football player in program history to give them even more.
Harris enrolled at UTSA way back in 2017, before any current member of the Spurs was in San Antonio. But thanks to a regular redshirt year, a medical redshirt year and the NCAA’s decision not to count the 2020 season against any player’s limit, he’s eligible to return for a seventh season in 2023.
This is where the NCAA’s new rules allowing players to earn name, image and likeness (NIL) compensation come into play. For all his prized attributes as a college quarterback, Harris doesn’t have an elite arm, and he’s never going to make millions of dollars playing in the NFL.
At best, if he decides to play pro football, he might earn around $100,000 per season in the Canadian Football League or in the XFL. So with all of that considered, an NIL deal that paid him a few thousand dollars a month on top of his scholarship might make it awfully tempting for him to come back to UTSA next year.
Under NCAA rules, Traylor himself isn’t allowed to arrange an NIL deal for Harris.
But if he was a UTSA donor?
“I’d make it really hard for him to leave,” Traylor said. “He’s fun to watch. I mean, that’s the best money you’d ever spend. … I’m teasin’, but I’m not teasin’.”
Harris, sitting next to his head coach in the interview room, grinned.
“Can I get a franchise tag?” Harris asked.
Harris meant it as a joke, but he’s also a poster guy for what NIL compensation was supposed to address. He’s not going to become wealthy playing football. But he’s the most popular player on a popular team in one of the nation’s biggest cities, and there’s no reason he shouldn’t be able to capitalize on that while he can.
In an age when college football coaches earn $9 million per season to lose more games than they win, a $75,000 endorsement deal for one of the most accomplished quarterbacks in the country would be a steal.
Considering that the Roadrunners will make a jump in competition next season, the stakes will be higher. To the uninitiated, the significance of switching from Conference USA to the American Athletic Conference might not mean much. But in essence, UTSA is moving from the ninthor 10th-best league in college football to what might be the sixth best, and that comes with some potentially lucrative rewards.
Next year, if the Roadrunners win the American, their prize could be a trip to a major New Year’s Six bowl game. In 2024, when the College Football Playoff expands to 12 teams, the American champion will have a realistic chance to earn one of those spots.
A few years ago, the thought of UTSA vying for the Fiesta Bowl or the College Football Playoff would have been outrageous. Not anymore.
“I don’t know if y’all noticed, but our players want to go quick,” Traylor said. “We’re not in a 10-year plan. We’re ready to get there now.”
Thanks in large part to their star quarterback, the Roadrunners already are closer than anyone thought they’d be.
And with the appeal of what awaits them?
Having skipped his way to a second celebration, Harris might not be able to resist sticking around for a third.