A former walk-on with a love for math, Christian Francisco wasn’t sure he was going to be able to play football when he first got accepted to Rice University.
“I ended up getting an acceptance letter to Rice as a normal student,” Francisco said. “I reached out to the coaches and was like, ‘Hey, I just got accepted to your school. Do you have any spots on your team? I’ll play any position.’”
Fast forward about three years, and the running back and mechanical engineering major has been named a semifinalist for the William V. Campbell Trophy ®, college football’s premier scholar-athlete award — just a week after catching his first career touchdown pass.
Francisco’s journey to this point was far from smooth. He encountered numerous challenges and bouts with adversity along the way, but his confidence and belief in himself never wavered.
Originally from Chicago, Francisco and his family moved when he was 8 years old to Rogers, Arkansas, where he developed a love for football.
“I can remember picking up a football ever since I could walk,” he said. “It’s always been something I’ve had an affinity for.”
His mother being a teacher, he excelled in school from a young age, particularly gravitating toward math.
In high school, he became a standout quarterback, making the all-state team and leading Rogers High School to a state title game. Academically, Francisco scored a 35 on the ACT and was a National Merit Finalist, AP Scholar with Distinction and College Board National African American Scholar.
With such a strong academic background paired with his athletic abilities, Francisco eyed Rice as a potential landing spot after graduating.
“Rice was kind of the obvious choice for me,” he said. “I always wanted to attend a top university and also play football at the highest level. Rice ended up being the place where those things came together.”
The only challenge was finding a spot on the team as a walk-on, and the only available position was running back — a position he hadn’t played since sixth grade.
“I was just like let’s do it. I’m going to take a chance on myself,” he said. “And a lot of that first year or two was just proving myself and who I was because I wasn’t recruited, so nobody knew who I was or had any expectations for me.”
Francisco's talent was undeniable, and as a true freshman, he was set to travel with the team for its 2021 season opener against the University of Arkansas. However, a significant knee injury late in training camp sidelined him.
“I was having a good scrimmage, and then on one of the very last plays, I got tackled in a funky way and ended up tearing my ACL and MCL,” he said. “It was devastating.
“To be set back for an entire year during my first few months on campus — all these thoughts start to creep into your head. Did I make the right decisions? What am I doing here? But I also think I learned a lot through that rehab process.”
Francisco did not use his injury as an excuse. Instead, he dove into his coursework, even organizing an additional summer class with a professor to stay ahead of schedule. He also took the rehabbing process head-on, adding 12 pounds of muscle in an effort to get back on the field.
“Throughout that next year, I continued to rehab and strengthen my mental game and earned some fortitude and resilience that would obviously help me in the coming years, even after life here at Rice,” he said. “Taking that year to discover my identity and who I was, especially my identity in Christ, ending up being great for me.”
Francisco finished a rigorous mechanical engineering degree plan in three years, taking upper-level and graduate-level classes early to accelerate the plan.
The adversity along the way didn’t stop, however. He sustained another injury-related setback in 2023 while preparing for the season. But just like in the classroom, no matter what challenge was thrown his way, Francisco always had an answer.
“I think my motivation coming back really just rested in my love of the game,” he said. “I was planning to graduate that spring, so I had no idea if I was going to get to come back. I was like, ‘Man, this might be my last time I ever get to play football.’ So I just wanted to do everything I could to make it back out there.
“Having amazing coaches and teammates definitely made the process easier too.”
Francisco also figured out a way to use his experiences with injuries and rehab to help others. For his senior capstone project, he and a team of engineers developed a rehabilitation device for postoperative bedridden orthopedic surgery patients at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
“It was helpful to be able to provide a unique perspective of what going through rehab actually looks like, even though it wasn’t to the capacity of being bedridden, to the rest of the team with this project,” Francisco said. “I think it definitely made for a more adaptable and functional solution that we were able to get back to the hospital.”
On the field, he finally started to see the fruits of his hard work and rehab in 2023, scoring his first career touchdown against Texas Southern University.
“That was an incredible moment,” Francisco said. “Prior to that game, I was begging the trainers to do everything I can to help me get back on the field as quickly as possible.
“As soon as they called the play, I was just like, ‘I'm not going to be denied here.’ Everything had come to this point, I couldn’t let it go to waste. Afterwards, it was just so incredible to celebrate with my teammates and coaches who I think all had a shared understanding of everything that I had gone through up to that point, with it paying off in a way in that moment.”
As special of a moment as it was, Francisco made sure it was just one milestone of many, for he has much more to accomplish in his athletic career. After having just one carry last year, he has four this year for 14 yards and has caught five career passes for 50 yards with his first career touchdown catch coming in a recent game against Army.
“Rice is one of the most unique places I’ve ever been, and I would argue it’s one of the most unique places to be a student-athlete in the country,” Francisco said. “You’re getting to compete at the highest level with amazing facilities, coaches and administrators that do everything they can to help us. And you’re getting one of the most unique student experiences in the country at one of the most diverse campuses in the nation.”
Francisco was named the 2024 Rice Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year and a Military Bowl STEM Scholar-Athlete. He currently has a 3.95 grade-point average and is set to graduate in December. In January, he will start a job in Houston with the Boston Consulting Group.
“I’m really excited to be able to start my career with some great people,” he said. “I want to take everything that I’ve learned here on the field and off the field and be able to apply it to my future life to accomplish incredible things and help people.”