You don't know what you got 'til it's gone, or so the saying goes.
For two-time Indiana defensive lineman Juan Harris, that seemed to be the case.
After departing IU in April and spending this fall at Independence (Kansas) Community College, Harris is back with the Hoosiers thanks to the coaching staff giving him a second chance.
"Sometimes when you have a chance to go to the environment that he went to when he left here, it was a wake-up call in a lot of ways and to realize what you have," IU head coach Tom Allen said. "And then when you choose to go somewhere else and you don't have those things anymore, and you realize how blessed you really were and how the opportunities you had -- so I think it's called growing up."
Harris posted 38 total tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss in nine games. Once his junior college season ended, he took an official visit to Indiana the weekend prior to the start of the early signing period.
The Chicago native did not have an IU offer prior to visiting campus in mid-December, but the mutual interest was enough to get him on campus.
"For me we went through a long process in regards to evaluating his situation and looked at things as they happen when he was here and know his history, and just know his upbringing and the things that he's been through," Allen said. "It was really a collective group effort for me to go through and talk to a lot of folks and spend time with them and have him come. We brought him on official visits so he could spend time with individuals here."
Prior to transferring, Harris played in his first three games at IU before he suffered a season-ending injury and received a medical redshirt in the fall of 2017.
Even with his injury-shortened season, he still gained experienced Indiana needs along its defensive line. The Hoosiers lost three defensive tackles to graduation in Jacob Robinson, Ja'merez Bowen and Mike Barwick Jr., so the addition of an big interior presence like the 6-3, 350-pound Harris addressed a critical need.
Now it's up to Harris to make the most of the new opportunity, starting when he arrives in January.
"We're going to do everything we can to be able to get him the resources to be successful," Allen said. "And I feel like he has a skill set, has some things that can help this program. And I believe that we have some things that we can do here to help him.
"So it's kind of a dual benefit. And to me it's about really challenging young men to grow and to develop and become who I believe they were created to be. So that's on him to come back here and prove that I was right in giving him a second chance."
----
• Talk about it inside The Hoops Forum or The Football Forum
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Follow us on Twitter: @IndianaRivals
• Like us on Facebook.
