If this is it for Grant Harper at UC Davis, if his first start after four seasons on the sideline will be his last, if he does not take another snap or throw one more pass, the senior can relinquish his No. 10 jersey without one regret. He made the most of his career despite little of it being spent on the field.

Harper started in place of redshirt freshman Caden Pinnick on Oct. 25 in the Aggies’ 27-16 victory at Northern Colorado. Pinnick was recovering from an illness and did not make the trip. That left Harper to direct the offense with UC Davis trying to run its record to 4-0 in the Big Sky Conference.

Pinnick was ruled out last Thursday, giving Harper little time to prepare for an opportunity he never imagined would come to be. Head coach Tim Plough thought it would. “He told me he had a weird feeling,” Harper recalled, “that there would be a time when I was going to have to win us a game.”

Harper did enough in the first half for the Aggies to survive the second half that Plough described “as bad an offensive performance as we’ve had in all the time I’ve ever been.” And Harper was the culprit, going 3-for-13 for 20 yards in the second half after being 12-for-17 for 192 yards in the first.

Two of Harper’s last five passes were intercepted and Northern Colorado converted both turnovers into points. Jacob Willig’s 29-yard field goal cut the deficit to 24-16 with 7:50 to play. With Harper struggling, Plough put his faith in running backs Jordan Fisher and Carter Vargas to clinch the win.

UC Davis drove 52 yards in 15 plays and drained seven minutes off the clock to put Hunter Ridley in position for a 41-yard field goal. The drive was the longest in plays and time for the Aggies this season. The drive actually went 67 yards because of a 15-yard targeting penalty on Sam Gbatu Jr. 

Gbatu caught Harper’s only pass during the drive for 4 yards. The offensive line paved the way for  Vargas to gain 32 yards on seven carries and Fisher to run for 30 on five carries. Vargas finished with 90 yards, Fisher gained 87 and Harper contributed 45. UC Davis had 236 yards on the ground.

Plough stuck with his strategy of calling running plays for the quarterback even with Pinnick out of action. Harper’s seven runs for 36 yards in the first half would not have taken a toll if the game had been played in Davis with a mild elevation of 52 feet. The elevation in Greeley, Colo., is 4,675 feet.

Harper not only had to deal with the altitude. He also had not played an entire game since he was a senior at Campolindo High in Moraga. Starting a game might have seemed “like the good old days in high school” for Harper, but Northern Colorado  is a bit more of a challenge than Acalanes High. 

“My body felt it. I think I’m feeling it,” said Harper, who has a bachelor’s degree in economics and is working toward a master’s in management. UC Davis is covering tuition for his master’s classes in lieu of a scholarship. Furthering his education was not the only incentive for Harper to stay put.

Having one last shot to start made his decision to stay worth every day on the sideline. “I knew there was risk of not playing, but I wanted one more year with the boys. I wanted to win that game for my teammates,” he said. “I wouldn’t walk away with any regrets even if I didn’t start a game.”