Late-game heroics were nothing new for Case Keenum in high school in Abilene.
Late-game heroics that led to key wins started in high school
Case Keenum’s gamewinning throw to Stefon Diggs in Sunday’s NFC divisional playoff game against New Orleans jogged Tim Buchanan’s memory.
The former Aledo head coach sent a text to Hugh Sandifer, well aware the Abilene Wylie coach would confirm his flashback.
“‘Is that the quarterback that threw the 35-yard touchdown on us on fourth down to beat us?’ ” Buchanan’s text read.
From Vince Young outdueling North Shore in the Astrodome to Kyler Murray’s 42nd consecutive win as a starter and Garrett Gilbert’s entire 2008 season, a quarterback’s track record under center on Friday nights leaves a permanent indent in Texas high school football circles.
Keenum’s track record isn’t accentuated by a win over a mid-2000s Aledo team, though. It’s instead earmarked by 2004. His track record blossomed and matured in the Class 3A Division I state championship game that season.
The Minnesota Vikings quarterback’s late-game heroics in Minneapolis on Sunday may have a never-ending lifespan in NFL lore. But to a certain few, it’s only another chapter in the already-thick Book of Keenum. ‘Just like the Saints’
Sunday ultimately was a reminder. Keenum’s gamewinning throw reminded Buchanan of a gumption he’d seen many years ago and the play served up flashbacks to many others, too.
“Watching the game the other night, I know exactly how the Saints feel,” Cuero head coach Travis Reeve said. “He played a big part in ripping our hearts out, so to speak, just like the Saints.”
Reeve was the offensive coordinator under his father Mark as undefeated Cuero entered the 2004 state title game as the top-ranked Class 3A team.
The game was out of his offense’s hands during the biggest moments of that night, though, which could be summed up in a couple of plays.
Keenum threw a 25-yard touchdown pass to tight end Josh Archer to tie the game at 14 early in the fourth quarter.
The penultimate play came on the game-winning drive with less than a minute remaining. It wasn’t a crisp pass or long bomb like in Sunday’s playoff game, either. It was just a scramble — one where it seemed like Keenum was improvising and making a way out of no way.
Cuero’s defense seemingly did everything right on this quarterback run, too. It was third-and-11. Abilene Wylie was at the Cuero 48. No one was open. Cuero could’ve forced overtime here or, better yet, find a way to steal the game.
But Keenum took off for 39 yards to the Cuero 9. Michael Kiger’s 2-yard run set kicker Tyler Driskell up for a gamewinning 25-yard field goal. Abilene Wylie went from frantic breathing to pure joy in just three plays.
Reeve remembers another Keenum scramble on that drive, and much like the other one, it looked like the former Abilene Wylie signal caller couldn’t be denied.
The driving point of that night was that fourth quarter belonged to Keenum, who was only a junior in a huddle of seniors at the time. Keenum was responsible for the Bulldogs’ other score in that game, too, on a 6-yard second-quarter run.
“He makes everyone around him a believer,” Archer said.
Archer will be in Philadelphia to watch Keenum and the Vikings meet the Eagles in the NFC Championship Game, where there will be another Texas high school football product under center for Philadelphia in Westlake’s Nick Foles.
Keenum’s tendency to be overlooked and his journeyman NFL status often pins him as an underdog, but it’s a different story in Texas high school football circles.
Archer said Keenum was always the first one picked on every team in every sport growing up.
As much as that gamewinning drive is attached to Keenum, Sandifer said they’d seen shades of it many times before and after.
He’s not an out-of-nowhere sensation in the Panhandle — or Cuero, Aledo and here in Houston, for that matter.
Reeve remembers the University of Houston football staff hosting a combine in Victoria the offseason after the 2004 state title game. Comparison to Brees
Art Briles had just been hired at UH. Reeve was working the camp when Briles asked him what he thought about Keenum, who had just signed with UH.
Reeve made the comparison to Drew Brees — another Texas high school football product from Austin Westlake who was on the losing end of the Vikings’ triumph Sunday
Both weren’t physical specimens and perhaps unheralded because of it. But both were winners.
“I think if you follow Case’s career on to the University of Houston and then obviously now in the NFL, there’s no question he’s a proven winner,” Reeve said.