University of Houston Athletics
Interview With Keenum
10/13/2011 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 13, 2011
Houston, Texas - Beyond The Trophies: Case Keenum
By Don Leypoldt, MFC College Media Relations Director
It's easy to get lost in the numbers when evaluating the prolific career of Case Keenum.
300 yards is a great game for quarterbacks. Houston senior quarterback Keenum has done it 31 times in his career. Heck, Keenum can claim eight games of 450 yards passing.
Don't mess with Texas.
The Cougar ranks second in NCAA FBS history in passing yards (15,895), third in touchdown passes (124) and third in completions. Keenum is on pace to break both the passing yardage record and the touchdown pass record by the time 2011 ends. The mobile Keenum, who has nearly 900 yards rushing in his career, is likely to break the FBS Total Offense record even before that.
Keenum doesn't put up passing stats - he puts up Weimar Republic inflation numbers.
He was a Maxwell Award semi-finalist in 2009 and expectations were high for his senior campaign...a campaign that abruptly ended midway through game three of 2010 with a torn ACL. Out for the year, Keenum applied for, and received, a medical redshirt.
"When we found out Case got his sixth year, I wasn't just happy for Case, I was happy for college football," said Cougar head coach Kevin Sumlin. "Case is a kid who has done everything right for the game. He loves the game and represents it well every day."
The Abilene, TX native has come back stronger than ever, leading the unbeaten Cougars with a 175 passer rating through his first six games of 2011.
Despite his obvious competitiveness on the gridiron, Keenum freely admits that football is not the be-all-and-end-all of his life. The Houston '10 graduate is now working on his Masters. He is also very active in Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), speaking at schools, visiting Texas Children's Hospital and in Star of Hope, a Christian outreach to the homeless.
Keenum recently sat down with the Maxwell Football Club:
MFC: You and Kevin Kolb (the Arizona Cardinal starting quarterback) overlapped at Houston for a year. Did you learn anything from him when you were a freshman?
CK: I learned a lot from Kevin. I got to watch what he does and learn from his actions. He obviously had advice for me. I learned how he operated on and off the field- the kind of person he was. The kind of leader he was. The way the guy was looked up to was definitely something that I wanted to have: that respect that teammates had for him. He's a great guy who has done great things since he has been here and will continue to do some more.
MFC: Do you think that you play in the most fun offense in FBS?
CK: I'm probably a little biased when it comes to that, but I think it probably is the one of the most fun. What we do, in slinging it around, and finding ways to get different people the ball. We've got some of the fastest guys in college football, I know that.
MFC: In 2008 and 2009, you had a dozen different receivers catch 30 passes in a year. What do you do to get chemistry down with that many different guys?
CK: I think it says a lot about our offense- that we have so many guys who work hard and are on the same page. That says that our coaches are able to do that for us, and the amount of talented guys that that we're able to get the ball to. It's pretty cool. Someone told me the other day that I've completed passes to 30 different players in my time here at U of H. That's guys who are not really supposed to get the ball at a certain place still running their routes and getting other people open. When you need someone to just blow off the top of the coverage on a go route and take everybody out of there, they're not just jogging. They're sprinting and ready to go because they never know if they're actually going to get the ball. I think it's doing the little things right. It's fun to have a bunch of guys to be able to throw it too because it builds your trust in the offense and in the guys that you have.
MFC: Is there one thing that Coach Sumlin drills into the offense that makes it work? Is it reading defenses, or your technique? Or is the offense complex enough that there isn't one point of focus?
CK: I think that playing fast is one of the main goals of our offense. Playing with a good tempo. We're a fast team and we're going to play fast no matter who we're playing. Defenses, you can run it a million different ways against us but we're going to make our stuff work no matter what defense is out there. We concentrate not really being in a hurry, but playing fast and making good, quick decisions.
MFC: Shifting gears a bit to Academics, you've been on the Conference USA Commissioner's Honor Rolls five times. What has helped you succeed in the classroom?
CK: The University of Houston has a great all-around aspect to it. It's not just athletics but academics as well. We have guys on our team who are engineers and business majors.
I owe a lot of that to the people around here, the academic staff. We've got some of the best counselors and tutors in the country. No doubt about that. Having them help has been huge. As you get older, you gotta learn when to take care of business. It's about priorities and what you have to take care of first. If you figure that out, you've gotten a lot figured out coming into college.
MFC: Last year, when you had to redshirt, did you learn anything about the game or about yourself when you were forced to take a sabbatical?
CK: I could probably sit here and talk for 30 minutes about everything I learned last year. I've learned that football is not the most important thing in my life and really it shouldn't be the most important thing in anybody's life. I learned really quickly that it can be taken away. Your body, things in this world, can be taken away in an instant and the things that matter most- your faith, having Jesus Christ in your life, your family- there are a lot of other things that are more important than football. That is probably the main thing I learned.
But on the field, I learned so much too. I got a different point of view, a third person point of view of the offense. I was able to help (quarterback) David Piland out and almost be a coach. It's a lot easier to see what is actually going on when you're a little bit removed.
MFC: Case, that's a good segue. Could you talk a little about your role in Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) and Star of Hope, and how you got involved?
CK: FCA has been a huge part of my life, ever since I could remember. My Dad was a director out in West Texas for a long time, he still is. That is how I came to know Christ - my Dad is a coach as well- was seeing the players that he had on his team. He not only had good football players but good men of character. Seeing that something different in those guys' lives is something that I wanted in my life and it was really because of their example that I came to know Christ.
That is one of the, if not the, main reason that I do what I do today. I see those kids and I know how they look up to us as college football players. They want to be us. They want to say what we say and act like we act. I don't take that lightly. I really take that to heart.
MFC: You're a busy guy with Division I football and classes. Now you've got family. (Note: Keenum got married this past July). No one would blame you if you didn't get as involved in the community as you do. Is that why you're as involved as you are, because people recognize Case Keenum and you have a platform?
CK: I don't do any of that to get recognized for myself. I think that the most important thing and the reason I play football is to glorify Christ. I think He calls us to do that and we really honor Him by maximizing our talents. That's why I spend so many hours in the weight room, in the film room and in the practice field.
It's not separating the two, it's combining athletics- what you do on the field- with your spiritual walk. That's a big part of what I do and why I give back like that. I see myself in kids all the time when kids are there at FCA groups or football camps when I'm sharing or being a huddle leader. That was me not too long ago. If it weren't for college athletes, older athletes, that poured themselves into me at a young age, I probably wouldn't be where I am now.
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Based on historic averages, Keenum is on pace to break the yardage record in mid-November. Between now and then, he'll continue to excel on the football field while doing the right things off of it. Finding a role model in Conference USA is an open-and-shut Case.
