SAN ANTONIO – Frank Harris and the UTSA football team will embark on the final hurrah of its season when they take on the Marshall Thundering Herd in the Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl at Toyota Stadium on Tuesday.
The last time UTSA and Marshall faced off was as Conference USA rivals in 2018, when the Thundering Herd handed the Roadrunners a 23-0 shutout loss. The following season, the Frank Harris era began.
UTSA finished the 2018 season with a 3-9 overall record.
But since then, the Roadrunners have pieced together four winning seasons, with the exception of 2019. This year, UTSA is trying to accomplish something it hasn’t before, finishin their year with a bowl game victory.
“It’s important for us,” UTSA Head Football Coach Jeff Traylor said. “There’s only a few things left in this program that we haven’t done and this is one of those things we haven’t done. So for us it takes on a level of importance that’s probably more than most programs.”
Marshall in its history is 13-5 in bowl games, for a win percentage of .722. Last year, the Thundering herd defeated UConn 28-14 in the 2022 Myrtle Beach Bowl.
The biggest storyline of all for UTSA entering the Frisco Bowl is its senior class. The Roadrunners veteran core is headlined by hometown star quarterback Frank Harris, wide receiver Joshua Cephus and safety Rashad Wisdom.
“I’m gonna be honest, tomorrow I’m probably going to be crying, win or loss,” Wisdom said.
“It really hasn’t hit me that much yet, but I know tomorrow night, like [Wisdom] said, win or lose, I’ll have tears coming down my eyes because it’s my last time playing in a UTSA uniform,” Harris said. “I’ve just been here for so long and all the struggles that we’ve been through to have the success we had the last couple seasons, it just means a lot.”
UTSA’s football program is only 13 years old as a member of the FBS and the Roadrunners quickly saw their rise success when its current senior class arrived on campus.
Under the leadership of Traylor and its senior class UTSA has prided itself on its student athletes extending their careers to the full extent of their eligibility and the low rate of players exercising their right to enter the NCAA transfer portal.
“I don’t think it’ll end,” Traylor said on if this marks the end of an era. “[The seniors] are leaving a legacy, all my young kids have seen it.”
When the Roadrunners and Thundering Herd meet in North Texas, UTSA will display a well-rounded offense and defense, as zero of its players have opted out.
UTSA, of the American Athletic Conference, is led by two first All-AAC players in Harris and Cephus. Harris has thrown 2,506 passing yards, rushed for 323 rushing yards, a combined 22 touchdowns and eight interceptions. Cephus leads the team with 82 receptions for 1,049 yards and nine TDs.
On the other side, Marshall, of the Sun Belt Conference, enters with a short-handed offense and a high-powered defense. The Thundering Herd will turn to their redshirt freshman signal caller Cole Pennington for the game after their starter announced he is entering the transfer portal.
The two programs square off at 8 p.m. at Toyota Stadium in Frisco.