Led by Frank Harris and Rashad Wisdom, UTSA has high expectations despite move to American Athletic Conference

Arriving at last season’s Conference USA media day, UTSA’s Frank Harris and Rashad Wisdom presented a striking image, proudly wearing their gleaming league championship rings.
Harris added some extra flair with a pair of orange shoes while Wisdom donned orange socks, matching the alternating pattern of orange and blue gems and the Roadrunners logo across the bulky piece of jewelry.
Returning to Arlington on Monday and Tuesday for UTSA’s first media days as a member of the American Athletic Conference, Wisdom and Harris favored a more causal approach.
Harris wore a white and gray polo with white sneakers, Wisdom chose a polo in UTSA’s navy, and the rings for last year’s second straight Conference USA championship were nowhere to be seen.
“I thought about it,” Wisdom said. “But I was like, ‘Nah, I’d rather wait and try to go get that American ring.’”
The Roadrunners are projected to be in the mix for that title chase, sitting second in the American Athletic Conference media poll when the selections were unveiled Tuesday. Defending champion Tulane earned 20 first-place votes to UTSA’s nine, edging the Roadrunner by 17 voter points.
Thinking back on the minimal expectations that greeted UTSA prior to his first season in 2020, coach Jeff Traylor said slotting in near the top of the league is “a heck of a lot better.”
Wisdom said the Roadrunners’ championship success in C-USA “means absolutely nothing” in the AAC, and he was looking forward to entering the fresh start as a projected title contender.
“It’s definitely a humbling feeling, for sure,” Wisdom said. “Coming into this great conference and already having high expectations is a good thing. We definitely know how it feels to be picked last, and we know how it feels to be picked first. At the end of the day, you have to go handle business.”
For Harris and Wisdom, both multiyear starters and established leaders for the Roadrunners, 2023 will also mark the payoff of a difficult offseason hampered by injury.
After being nagged through the season by yet another knee injury in a college career that was delayed by a pair of ACL tears, Harris was slated to undergo a cleanup procedure shortly after the Roadrunners’ bowl game.
The surgery was projected to be minor, to the point that Harris considered fitting the procedure during UTSA’s open week at the end of October. Instead, the operation led to an infection that had to be addressed through another emergency procedure, putting Harris on bed rest for two to three weeks, he said.
“It was probably the hardest thing I’ve been through my whole life, honestly. It was rough,” Harris said. “It was the darkest days of my life. I was crying every day. It was rough.”
Even when Harris felt he was clear of infection, he had to closely monitor for signs of a recurrence, then undergo an additional procedure to fully clean his knee.
Declining to reveal many more details, Harris said “probably the hardest part” of the ordeal was “knowing it could’ve been prevented.”
His offseason work was reduced mostly to film study, but Traylor said Harris is looking “like his old self again,” and Harris said he’s “back to almost 100 percent” as the Roadrunners prepare to open fall camp.
“I’ve never battled through so much pain to get to a season, so it’s going to mean a lot, for sure,” Harris said.
Wisdom posted to social media last week that an injury to his labrum was “the hardest thing I’ve been through” since the death of his younger brother Bryce in July 2020.
He underwent surgery in Houston and missed the final seven games of UTSA’s season, recalling some of the particularly dark moments as he watched UTSA play against UAB the day following the procedure.
“I really stayed in my room for three days in the darkness, just sitting there by myself thinking,” Wisdom said. “Sometimes really breaking down like, ‘Damn, I'm back in another hole.’ I made a conscious decision at that moment, I'm not going to keep feeling sorry for myself. I'm going to get back up from this, and we’re going to keep moving.”
Finding a new perspective, Wisdom said he attacked the summer with an added vigor and now feels “aligned mentally, physically and spiritually,” boasting a six pack of abdominal muscles for the first time in his career.
“This was one of the offseasons I probably went the hardest in, and I definitely feel the benefits of it,” Wisdom said. “This is the best I’ve felt in a long time.”
While Traylor said the Roadrunners will be near full health for the start of fall practice next Wednesday, one exception is receiver De’Corian Clark, who continues to recover from a gruesome knee injury suffered Nov. 5 against UAB.
UTSA opens the 2023 season at Houston on Sept. 2 — just shy of 10 months removed from Clark’s injury.
“He’s right where he’s supposed to be,” Traylor said. “These next three weeks will be big. We won’t put him out there until he’s ready. Whenever that is, I don’t really know. Could be Houston, it might not be. We’ll see what he looks like.”