PULLMAN — As a young football prospect in Florida, Travell Harris didn’t need to travel to the opposite corner of the country to play in the Football Bowl Subdivision. In the weeks before the 2017 signing period, he was being pursued by schools like Florida Atlantic and South Florida. Several months earlier, the Miami Hurricanes had wooed him.
In the end, he decided distance was no object. If he needed proof, he could look to his father, who at the same age enlisted in the Army and was sent to Germany.
Waiting until signing day before making his decision, Harris pledged to Washington State because he thought its Air Raid offense would suit his skills. Whenever the football’s in his hands, it’s hard to argue.
With 16 catches through four games of his sophomore season, Harris ranks fifth on the team in that category. Moreover, his flair for kickoff returns is being obscured by the NCAA’s introduction of fair catches on those plays, which is increasing the frequency of touchbacks.
But Harris’ dynamic after-the-catch runs have provided some of the Cougars’ brightest moments the past two seasons. When he does get a chance to return kicks, his acute vision and slithery moves go into high definition.
“I want the ball in my hands, no doubt,” Harris said this week in his deep, affable Florida drawl. “When the opportunity comes, I’m going to do whatever I can to get into the end zone.”
The Cougars (3-1, 0-1) play their first Pac-12 road game at 7 p.m. Saturday at Utah (3-1, 0-1). The game will be on FS1.
Harris’ father, Willis Harris of Tampa, Fla., said he tried to stay out of the way when his son was choosing a college. If his boy wound up on the other side of the country, he figured he could make the adjustment. At the same age, Willis Harris was adjusting to Army life and eventually was sent to Schweinfurt, Germany, a few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“When I left here, I went to basic training in Fort Knox in Kentucky,” he said by phone Wednesday. “I had never seen snow. And then, here I am 18, they sent 208 of us over there to Germany. A whole different world. You have to adapt.”
From a WSU perspective, his reference to snow calls to mind the 2018 Apple Cup, when a storm here put a hush on the Air Raid. Travell Harris, a second-year freshman scarcely more experienced with snow than his father had been, furnished one of the Cougs’ few highlights when he slalomed 47 yards on a kickoff return. As he switched the ball to his boundary-side hand, it slipped from his grasp and sailed harmlessly out of bounds.
But Harris has adjusted to the weather, just as he has adjusted to college life.
His father spent five years in the Army, adhering to a family tradition, and now is a warehouse receiver in Tampa. None of his six children followed him into the military, but he said he’s made a point of introducing structure to their lives. Travell, his youngest, speaks to him several times a week by phone.
Willis Harris thinks one key to Travell’s adaptation to WSU was, unlike his siblings, he had attended a private school with rigorous academics, Tampa’s Jesuit High. It was largely at the suggestion of his mother, Lancie, an executive secretary, but Willis Harris signed on to the idea after visiting the school. Travell’s friend Malik Davis also enrolled at Jesuit and now is a running back for the Florida Gators.
“They broke that barrier, and now a of lot of kids’ parents say, ‘We want our son to go there now,’” Willis Harris said.
Travell Harris, fast and low to the ground at 5-foot-9, led the Pac-12 last year at 27.6 yards per kickoff return, including a 100-yarder. His average is similar this season, but he’s been held to four returns.
Has he found that frustrating? Probably. But he seems to be channeling his frustrations into his receiving exploits, which have included some remarkable after-the-catch bursts and wanderings. He has 16 catches for 225 yards and four touchdowns.
“As a kick returner, you’ve got to hit some seams now — you can’t be scared,” Harris said, in a lightly exhorting tone perhaps inspired by his father. “So when the ball’s in my hands as a receiver. it’s kind of the same thing. Get that ball and go.”
NOTES — One of Harris’ fellow receivers, Easop Winston Jr., was added Wednesday to the watch list for the Biletnikoff Award, given annually to the nation’s top receiver. Already on the list was Dezmon Patmon. Also, WSU quarterback Gage Gubrud was announced as one of 185 semifinalists for the William V. Campbell Trophy, presented to the country’s premier scholar-athlete.
Grummert may be contacted at daleg@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2290.
