Chargers Roster Breakdowns, 90-in-90: OLB Nigel Harris

Player Factfile:

Name: Nigel Harris

Age: 22

Position: OLB

College: University of South Florida

NFL games played: 0

Games played for the Chargers: 0

Fun fact: Family is very important to Harris - so important that he has a tattoo of his parents (and pet dog!) on his back. If you want to see it, it's here.

I really like Nigel Harris as a player.

If there's an UDFA who can crack the roster (outside of Younghoe Koo), I think Nigel Harris has a good chance to be that person. He's small for a LB, at just 6'0, 220 lbs (and some places have reported him as being as light as 200 lbs), but he makes up for that in speed (think Jatavis Brown), running a seriously impressive 4.53 40 yard dash at his Pro Day. Don't think that Harris isn't strong enough to play LB in the NFL, either - he put up a very respectable 15 bench press reps at that Pro Day as well.

After a two game team-enforced suspension which, according to Harris stemmed from "being boneheaded, trying to enjoy college to the very fullest. For real, that's what it was honestly, so I learned my lesson." You don't have to believe or accept his excuse, but it's irrelevant. Harris didn't put a foot wrong in college after that, and ended a very productive four year USF career with 232 career tackles, 5.5 sacks and 8 forced fumbles, leading the entire NCAA in forced fumbles in 2014 with 6.

Harris played in a 3-4 defense at USF, but fits very well in the 4-3 defense the Chargers are expected to run under Gus Bradley. If Harris were to make the 53 man roster it would be as a backup LB, likely at the Will or Sam spot rather than the Mike, although he's versatile enough to play all three.

Harris wasn't forced into playing for USF - he actually had 16 different scholarship offers, but chose USF above the others. It turned out to be quite the family affair - his cousin had just finished a 3 year career for the Bulls before Nigel arrived, and his brother Brandon had joined USF as a walk-on the year before. He'd committed to USF as an impressive High School player, having played as a HB and punter as well as LB, making him a 3* recruit according to all the major recruiting sites.

Harris wasn't just good at football throughout High School, either - he had a weighted GPA of above 4.0, and planned to study engineering when he arrived at USF. I say planned to, because I know he graduated with a degree in May 2017 from South Florida, but I have no idea what it was in. I searched for close to an hour to try and find out, but it's genuinely not listed anywhere, which is sheer madness. My guess is that he did major in engineering, but his LinkedIn page shows that he's part of the 'University of South Florida College of Business Alumni Group,' so who knows what he actually ended up graduating in. I don't think engineering students take marketing exams, either.

Whatever Harris was studying, congratulations to him for graduating with that degree. Hopefully, he sticks on the Chargers and he won't need to be putting his degree to use any time soon.