Kelechi Nwachuku steps into starting safety role for UTSA after injury to Rashad Wisdom

Playing through his fifth season at UTSA, safety Kelechi Nwachuku looks around the Roadrunner Athletics Center of Excellence with a feeling that he’s “been in everybody on the team’s shoes before.”

He played only a handful of snaps during a redshirt year in 2018, then was thrust into a starting role for the final six games of his redshirt freshman season. Through the next three years he filled every role in between, acting as special teams ace, standout reserve, occasional starter and, this season, a leader worthy of a single-digit jersey.

His range of experiences helps him relate to the whole roster, he said, and he tries to approach UTSA’s younger defensive backs in the locker room to help with any questions or problems they might face, the same way former Roadrunners Carl Austin and Andrew Martel once did for him when he was settling into the program.

“I like being myself and looking out for the guys,” Nwachuku said. “When people think of leaders, they always think of the guy that’s in front of the team, speaking up, and the vocal guys. But sometimes guys just want people to ask how they’re doing and check up on them, and I feel like that’s where I come in.”

When Nwachuku learned that starting safety Rashad Wisdom would miss the rest of the season due to injury, his first reaction was to send a text to make sure his teammate was holding up all right.

Wisdom’s absence means Nwachuku will step in as a full-time starter and team leader for the first time in his career, but he said his approach is “not trying to do anything supernatural,” finding his usual fit in the defense for UTSA’s stretch run.

“I just feel like I’ve played a lot of football, and I’m levelheaded,” Nwachuku said. “I know you can’t get too high or can’t get too low. There’s a lot of that in college football. I’m just prepared.”

With 152 career tackles and more than 1,000 snaps under his belt, Nwachuku has experienced critical moments for UTSA. As Memphis crossed into the red zone during the fourth quarter of a tie game last season, Nwachuku forced a fumble that helped set the stage for UTSA to win 31-28 on a last-second field goal.

Making his second start of 2022 last week against North Texas, Nwachuku showed many of the qualities that make Wisdom a standout, Traylor said, displaying physicality, sound tackling and a veteran intellect.

“He’s just a different kid. He has a depth to him that’s different,” Traylor said. “He’s very vocal. Kelechi is opinionated. You’re going to hear him. He’s going to give you his thoughts, now. He’s a smart, smart kid. And most of the time, he’s right, which is why we listen to him.”

Of the 20 Roadrunners who were voted by their teammates to deserve single-digit jerseys as team leaders for 2022, Nwachuku is the only one who didn’t open the year as a starter.

Much of the respect he’s earned in UTSA’s locker room comes from his willingness to wait his turn, Traylor said, the same way running back Brenden Brady did for four years before claiming a starting spot this season.

Defensive coordinator Jess Loepp said entering the year that Nwachuku’s “professionalism” helped establish him as a leader. On the field, Nwachuku had proven himself as a player “who could be a starter a lot of places.”

“I’m not worried one bit when Kelechi is in that game,” Loepp said. “He’s an unbelievable leader, an unbelievable communicator. He’ll get us lined up and get in the right calls, and he’ll be able to play and do everything we need him to do.”

A four-year starter who led UTSA in tackles and earned First-Team All-Conference USA honors the past two years, Wisdom provided the Roadrunners a loud, confident presence in the secondary, Traylor said.

Nwachuku said Wisdom is still going to be around meetings to share insight, and quarterback Frank Harris said the Roadrunners will continue to look to Wisdom during practices and home games.

“We’re definitely going to miss him out there being on the field, but he’s always going to be there for us,” Harris said. “I know he’s going to be a great leader, with or without playing.”

Announcing his injury on Twitter following UTSA’s game against North Texas, Wisdom said he intends to return for his fifth-year senior season in 2023.

With fellow starting safety Clifford Chattman playing his final year of eligibility this season, Nwachuku has been mulling the possibility of returning for an additional year in 2023, potentially forming a veteran tandem alongside Wisdom.

“If coach Traylor would like to have me back,” Nwachuku said, “I would love to come back.”