When the UTSA Roadrunners take the field for their 2023 season opener at the University of Houston’s TDECU Stadium on Saturday night, the player who has become the face of the program will be under center again. one of the players leading them out will be Frank Harris.
“I’m feeling really great,” said quarterback Frank Harris. “It’s a blessing to come out here for another season.”
Just six months ago in March it didn’t look like Harris would be back with the Roadrunners. It was possible his football career was over.
“Honestly, I was done in March and April,” Harris said. “I was ready to give it up. I told Coach [Jeff Traylor] and a couple of players that I’m medically retiring. It was just too hard for me at that point. To see where I’m at now is a testament to God. He does everything for a reason, and I’m blessed to be here.”
UTSA at Houston
When: Sept. 2, 6 p.m.
Where: TDECU Stadium
How to watch: Fox Sports 1
Following UTSA’s 11-3 2022 season, Harris was named Conference USA’s most valuable player, and he announced in December he would return for a final year. But those plans were threatened after Harris underwent four surgeries on his left knee between January and April. In April, Dr. Thomas DeBerardino at UT Health San Antonio convinced Harris that he could clear out the scar tissue in the knee and possibly allow him to continue to play football.
The surgery worked. Harris underwent rehab, and by June it looked like he would be able to return to the Roadrunners.
“I can remember telling Frank, ‘Let’s see what you look like June 1st, and if it’s no better by June the 1st I’ll wave the white flag with you and we’ll throw the biggest going-away party together’,” Traylor said. “He got better. In July he got better and in August he got better.”
Harris continued to improve over the summer and by August he was able to take part in fall camp. The former standout from Schertz’s Clemens High School will enter the 2023 season as the Roadrunners’ starting quarterback.
“The first day of fall camp I went out there and had the time of my life,” Harris said. “I was blessed to be out there running around, doing everything. Our staff and trainers helped push me and motivate me.”
The last few years Harris has been such a UTSA mainstay it seems like he’s always been the Roadrunners quarterback, and in a way he has. This year will be the Roadrunners’ 13th season of football. Harris, 24, is entering his seventh season at UTSA.
“There will be a day that there is another quarterback back there,” Traylor said. “I pray the city of San Antonio cuts that quarterback some tremendous slack and remembers back to when Frank started with me even. There’s been a gradual progression of how great Frank has gotten.”
Harris got a redshirt in 2017 and a medical redshirt in 2018. He played in four games in 2019 before another season-ending injury. Since the start of the 2020 season Harris has played in 39 of the Roadrunners’ 40 games. Harris gained an extra year of eligibility after the NCAA ruled that all student athletes on a roster in 2020 would be given an extra year because of the pandemic.
Harris enters this season holding more than 30 school records and is just 644 yards away from reaching 10,000 passing yards for his career.
Harris hopes to lead the Roadrunners to the win Saturday night in Houston. It would provide no small measure of satisfaction after UTSA’s 37-35 triple-overtime loss in the Alamodome last year.
“Last year’s game weighs a lot on me,” Harris said. “That last play, I messed it all up. I think about it all the time, but we just have to go out there and play our style of football and everything will take care of itself.”
UTSA and Houston will meet at 6 p.m. on Saturday night at TDECU Stadium in Houston. The game will be televised nationally on Fox Sports 1.
