May 11, 2015
Chris Szagola/AP
Former Temple running back Kenneth Harper has signed with the New York Giants.
Former Temple running back Kenny Harper is used to playing his home games at Lincoln Financial Field. However, the next time he walks out onto the field, it will be through the visitor's tunnel. And it will likely be to the sound of 60,000-plus fans booing him.
After going undrafted in Chicago -- there were no Temple players among the 256 who had their names called at the NFL Draft -- the 5-foot-10, 233-pound back made the most of his three-day tryout with the New York Giants over the weekend, earning a free agent contract.
While Harper's numbers aren't eye-popping from a production standpoint, his durability and toughness are a different story. In four years at Temple, the Gainesville, Fla. native never missed a game (48) and was awarded one of the rare single-digit jerseys -- reserved for the toughest players on the team -- as a senior, when he was also a team captain.
| Rush YDS | YPC | TD | REC | YDS | TD | |
| 2011 | 128 | 3.9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2012 | 65 | 5.0 | 2 | 13 | 129 | 1 |
| 2013 | 613 | 4.0 | 9 | 26 | 241 | 2 |
| 2014* | 307 | 3.5 | 5 | 27 | 158 | 2 |
| TOT | 1,113 | 4.1 | 17 | 66 | 528 | 4 |
Needless to say, Harper was happy to land an NFL deal, telling Marc Narducci of The Philadelphia Inquirer the following:
“It feels pretty good,” Harper said by phone.
[...]
“It’s a sigh of relief,” he said about his deal with the Giants. “But you can never relax beause you always have to keep going and you can never be content.” [philly.com]
Now with the Giants, Harper will compete with four running backs already on their roster: Rashad Jennings, Shane Vereen, Andre Williams, and Orleans Darkwa.
