‘PRETTY CRAZY HOW IT'S ALL WORKED OUT' AT UW FOR HARRIS

By Rich Myhre

By Washington Huskies

November 1^st, 2018

Back in high school, and in a moment of great discouragement, Nick Harris actually considered quitting football.

His dream had always been to play in college, but few people seemed to think he could. Recruiters, unable to see past his 6-foot-1 height – decidedly small for an offensive lineman – dismissed his chances. By the end of his junior year at JSerra Catholic High School south of Los Angeles, Harris was still waiting for his first major-college scholarship offer.

His only offer to that point was from the University of New Hampshire, an NCAA FCS (formerly Division I-AA) program. Later, another scholarship was offered by Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, also an FCS program.

Then, almost out of the blue, came an offer from the University of Washington.

His reaction? “I was pretty shocked,” Harris admitted.

‘PRETTY CRAZY HOW IT'S ALL WORKED OUT' AT UW FOR HARRIS

It was surprising, he explained, because “numerous coaches had been telling me I was too short and that I wouldn’t be able to play Division I football. Even (FCS) schools said I wouldn’t be able to play there. … (The frustration) kind of took a toll on me.

“I was definitely starting to doubt myself,” he said. Indeed, quitting had seemed a reasonable option “if nobody was going to take me seriously.”

Fortunately, his JSerra offensive line coach was Pat Harlow, a former University of Southern California player who spent eight NFL seasons with the New England Patriots and Oakland Raiders. Harlow “kind of sat me down and said, ‘I’ve been around football and I’ve been around offensive line play for a while, and I know you can play Division I football,’” Harris recalled. “He said, ‘You just have to hang in there, and when you have an opportunity just take it, wherever it comes from.’ That kind of got me wanting to play football again. It kind of got my head straight.”

That his opportunity came from Washington seemed almost too good to be true. Within weeks, he was committed to the Huskies.

He enrolled in the summer of 2016, but even then there were skeptics. “When I first got here,” he said, “a lot of guys didn’t think I was on scholarship. A lot of guys thought I was a walk-on, just because of my size.”

But soon there was good news. Though Harris had every expectation of redshirting as a freshman, he found out otherwise shortly before the team’s season opener vs. Rutgers.

Chris Strausser, Washington’s offensive line coach at the time, “sat me down at the end of fall camp and said, ‘You had a great camp as a freshman and you competed with our starting defense. I think you can help us out early out this season, rotating with some of these guys.’

“Having the possibility of playing,” Harris said, “I was like, sure. I wasn’t going to not take that opportunity.”

One of four true UW freshmen to play against Rutgers, Harris ended up seeing action in 12 of the team’s 14 games that season, splitting time between left guard and right guard. He also started four of the last seven games, including the Pacific-12 Championship game against Colorado and the College Football Playoff semifinal against Alabama.

In 2017 he started all 13 games at right guard and played well enough to be an All-Pac-12 honorable mention selection. He has likewise started every game this season except vs. North Dakota, which he missed due to injury.

Not bad for a player who came within a whisker of giving up football less than four years ago.

During the recruiting process, “the only shortcoming Nick had that turned people off was that he was short,” said Scott Huff, Washington’s current offensive line coach. “He just wasn’t your prototypical 6-foot-4 or 6-foot-5 (offensive lineman).”

What stood out to UW coaches, even if no one else noticed, “was that he was really fast,” Huff said. “He could really run, and way more than a (typical) lineman you’d say runs well. You could also tell he was really athletic. And the other thing we noticed was just how long his wingspan is. So if you think about it, he’s got a really good combination. If you measure his arms and then if you know how athletic he is, it makes total sense why he’s really a good player.”

In recruiting, “and for whatever reason, you get guys that people initially (skip) over,” Huff added. “But if you get down to the meat and potatoes of it, without a doubt (Harris) should’ve been a heavily recruited player.”

The Huskies moved Harris from guard to center this season, following the graduation of 2017 starter Coleman Shelton. With the new position comes the responsibility of not only handling center snaps, but also making adjustments to blocking assignments at the line of scrimmage for his fellow offensive linemen.

Center is a position of both leadership and mental prowess, “and I love it,” said Harris, a third-year junior. “It requires a lot of communication and I’m a talkative person. That’s kind of my personality, so it fits who I am.”

There are times, he went on, when his entire UW experience seems “pretty surreal. Before I came on my official visit up here, I’d never been on an airplane. I’d never even been out of California, so coming to Seattle was like a foreign experience. … Being from California, you have USC and UCLA, and everybody wants to play there. But I’m glad they left me alone and that I was able to be a Husky.

“I kind of sit back sometimes and think, ‘Damn, after all that stuff I went through in high school, I’m here now.’ And I have to remember what I went through to get here. I’m super appreciative of (head coach Chris Petersen) for believing in me when nobody else really did. He’s played a huge role not only in what I’ve become as a player, but also in what I’ve become as a man.”

Washington, he said, “is the ideal place for who I am as a person and who I was raised to be. It’s been the perfect situation for me, and it’s pretty crazy how it all worked out.”