DALLAS – A trio of standouts headline the list of 2022 preseason Conference USA Football award winners, as chosen by the league’s 11 head coaches. UTSA redshirt senior QB Frank Harris was selected as the C-USA Offensive Player of the Year, UTSA senior S Rashad Wisdom was tabbed to take home Defensive Player of the Year honors, while WKU redshirt junior K Brayden Narveson earned Special Teams Player of the Year accolades.
A semifinalist for the Davey O’Brien and Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Awards a year ago, Harris enters the 2022 campaign with a 20-8 record as UTSA’s starting quarterback. The lefthander has thrown for 5,293 yards and 42 touchdowns on 488-of-739 passing (.660) and rushed for 1,220 yards and 15 touchdowns as a Roadrunner.
Harris guided UTSA to the most successful season in program history in 2021, helping lead the Roadrunners to a 12-2 record, their first conference championship and top-25 ranking and to their second straight and third overall bowl game. A two-time national player of the week last fall, he set school single-season records for passing yards (3,177), completions (398), touchdowns (27), attempts (263), completion percentage (.661), passing efficiency (152.5), total offense (3,743) and touchdowns responsible for (33). He also rushed for 566 yards — a program record for a QB — and six scores and caught three passes for 36 yards and a TD en route to Dave Campbell’s Texas Football Offensive Player of the Year and second-team all-conference accolades.
A two-time all-conference performer at safety, Wisdom has paced the Roadrunners in total tackles in each of the past two seasons, helping guide UTSA to 19 wins, a conference championship and a pair of bowl games during that timeframe. A two-time Dave Campbell’s Texas Football All-Texas College Team selection, he has registered 227 tackles, 158 solo stops, 12 tackles for loss, five interceptions, four forced fumbles, a pair of sacks and a fumble recovery. He has returned two of his interceptions for touchdowns, which is tied for the school record.
Last season, Wisdom recorded 88 tackles, 67 solo stops, four tackles for loss, six pass break-ups and a forced fumble to help lead UTSA to a 12-2 record, the C-USA title, the program’s first top-25 ranking and the Frisco Bowl. He logged 10-plus tackles three times, including a season-high 13 in the 52-46 road win over WKU.
Narveson returns to WKU as one of the most dynamic kickers in all of college football. The redshirt junior hit on 23-of-29 field goal attempts in 2021 with a long of 53 yards in the Hilltoppers’ win over Marshall to clinch Conference USA’s East Division Championship. He was also perfect on all his PAT attempts throughout the year, going 72-of-72.
Narveson scored the most points by any kicker in the country a season ago with 141. That number was also second-best among all players regardless of position. Narveson’s mark of 10.1 points per game was sixth best in the nation, and he finished 13th in the country in field goals per game. His 23 makes tied him for the most in a single season in WKU history. He enters the 2022 season as the most accurate field goal kicker all time at WKU with a clip of 83.7 percent.
2022 C-USA FOOTBALL COACHES PRESEASON AWARDS
Offensive Player of the Year
Frank Harris, RS Sr., QB, UTSA
Defensive Player of the Year
Rashad Wisdom, Sr., S, UTSA
Special Teams Player of the Year
Brayden Narveson, RS Jr., K, WKU
-ConferenceUSA.com-
