Bowling Green State University Athletics
Harris still learning to love football
August 25, 2003 | Football
(originally published October 5, 2002)
Bowling Green quarterback Josh Harris brings more to the huddle than a big arm, feet like a dancer and a brain that picks up defenses like a speed reader.
The guy has a winner's touch.
Receiver Robert Redd learned that when the Falcons were putting the finishing touches on a 51-28 victory over Missouri two weeks ago.
He's just really confident in himself," Redd said. Since becoming a starter the final three games of last season, Harris has done much of the heavy lifting by:
But there was a time when Meyer didn't know whether Harris, a junior from Westerville North, had enough drive to run the scout team.
"My first impression was that he was a classy guy and that academics were very important to him," Meyer said. "But football wasn't important. He just showed up at some games. I've told him that he had better love it.
"Until a year and a month ago, there was no passion for the game. I told him that if didn't get after it, that he'd have problems. If you're the quarterback, you have to be a junkie. He told me he wasn't into it.
"That changed once he got a little success. He has developed a love for football in the last year. He's a competitive guy. He studies it now."
To a point, that is.
"I am enjoying football a lot more," Harris said. "I can't say that I'm a fanatic, but, I'm getting there. In high school, you can get away without loving football. It wasn't hard my first year of college, but then coach Meyer got here and it was physically exhausting. That made you think. You wondered if it was worth it, and it is worth it.
"I decided to take a different approach. I started treating practices like games and started having more success. With success came responsibility and with success and responsibility came appreciation. I started watching more film and getting more competitive." Despite being the MAC's most visible player this side of Marshall's Byron Leftwich, Harris regards football as a means to get a degree in interpersonal communications. Last season, he was named MAC scholar-athlete of the week twice and was the only player in the conference to participate in the NCAA Foundation Leadership Conference.
"I knew if I wanted to stay in school that I had t do it in football," Harris said. "School is important to me. I have to get good grades for myself and for my family."
Harris blossomed the final three games of 2001, when he led the Falcons to victories over Ohio University (304 total yards and a touchdown), Northwestern (496 yards and five touchdowns) and MAC champion Toledo (379 yards and six touchdowns).
This season, Harris, a 6 foot 3, 225 pound junior, has scored eight touchdowns in three games to lead the nation in scoring average (16.0) and has accounted for 759 yards running and passing. More importantly, he has led Bowling Green to wins over Tennessee Tech, Missouri and Kansas.
One would think Harris would have loved football from the crib. His father, M.L. Harris, played at Kansas State, in the Canadian Football League and with the Cincinnati Bengals.
But Josh wasn't aware of the depth of his father's accomplishments until hearing about them at a North High School reunion.
"Joshua doesn't have to live up to what I've done," M.L. Harris said. "I just tell him to live your best - enjoy it and have fun. I didn't even ant him to play little league football, because I didn't think he'd get the right coaching. I didn't start playing until the 10th grade.
Every year in high school I told him that if he let me have him for the summer, that I could take him to the next level. But I told him that he had to enjoy it. He never did want to commit an entire summer, and I sure wasn't going to force it on him."
Dad hasn't been a coach from the stands, either.
"I just enjoy watching Joshua," he said. "I'm proud of him."
And Bowling Green is thankful for him.
