The Pecan Park Eagle

Case Keenum #7
Starting Quarterback
Houston Texans

Most of us from UH have been waiting for this day from the moment that the Houston Texans signed Case Keenum to their taxi squad as a non-drafted free agent after the 2011 season. We knew from his career in college that, if he ever got his chance, he would shoot past Yates and Schaub into the driver’s seat as the Texans’ best leadership shot at climbing out of their “good enough to fail” malaise and start making the real move on the Super Bowl.

The modest, always humble but trenchant student of the game did just what we thought he would do. After almost disappearing from print last year, Case went to work learning the Texan system as a member of the practice squad, finally getting some critical game time in the 2013 pre-season. He quickly proved himself too valuable to be left off the active players’ roster at the start of the season. The Texans knew that he had shown enough to have been gobbled up fast by some other quarterback-desperate NFL club had they not protected him.

Then came the four-game stretch of Schaub “six-picks” and a fifth game extension of this offensive black plague by Yates for another loss and the Keenum ascension into the “starter tryout seat” as the QB to go up against Kansas City and one of the best defenses in the NFL set the stage for long-term change. Case acquitted himself beautifully, even though the Texan inability to protect Keenum from the blitz and conservative play-calling contributed greatly to Houston’s one-point loss. Case had shown what he could do, winning his promotion to the starter’s job for the balance of this fading away season. Schaub has no future here – and Yates appears to be little more than a younger version of Schaub. The Texans need to be convinced that Keenum is their guy for the future before the next draft and the only way to do that is to play him out there as the starting QB for the rest of the season.

A comparison of the college career numbers for Case Keenum and Andrew Luck is quite interesting on many levels. Take a look at the following chart. Please note the staggering difference that exists in their cumulative numbers. Only some of that chasm of difference is due to the fact that Case played four plus seasons from 2007 to 2011 due to an early season injury in 2010 that allowed him to return for his banner year in 2011. Luck, on the other hand, only played three seasons in a much less pass oriented offense at Stanford (2009-11) before coming out early as a Heisman candidate on his way to becoming the No. 1 pick in the same NFL draft that avoided Keenum altogether.

A Brief Comparison of the Collegiate Football Statistics of Case Keenum and Andrew Luck:

Case had the best answer to an oft-thought, if not always asked question from Channel 13’s Bob Slovak yesterday. Slovak wanted to know how Case felt about going up against the No. 1 Draft pick in today’s Cots@Texans game as the guy with all the new college passing records that no NFL team claimed in any round.

“When all is said and done,” Keenum answered in slow deliberate words: “This league is not about past awards or records. It’s about football. It’s not about the draft and all the externals that come with it,” Keenum added. “When the whistle blows, and that ball snaps, it’s about football.”

Case Keenum is not about ego, or keeping track of records, or getting his feelings hurt. He’s about playing the game with all his heart, mind, soul, and intelligence; he’s about learning from his mistakes and getting better; and he’s about knowing that the learning process never stops and that nothing worthwhile in life is ever possible without effort and a willingness to take nothing for granted.

Case Keenum could fail in his new opportunity with the Texans, but I, for one, wouldn’t bet against him. By season’s end, unless he gets hurt, God forbid, my guess is that the Texans are going to be counting their lucky stars that they gave this great young man from the University of Houston a chance at a time when everyone else was willing to write him off as a “too small, systems-assisted quarterback”. He’s so much more than that gross misunderstanding of the man who starts today for the Houston Texans.

Go Get ‘Em, Case! Your jury can hardly wait!

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Tags: Case Keenum

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