Chuckie Keeton's rise mirrors Utah State's, with one final ascent to go

LOGAN, Utah — When he turned on his phone late in the afternoon on Sept. 3, 2011, still too young and naive to know he wasn't supposed to do what he had just done, Chuckie Keeton got a sense that things were about to be different.

Here was this young, unheralded true freshman quarterback out of Texas playing for a program that hadn't been to a bowl game in more than a decade, and it didn't occur to him that Utah State had no business going into Auburn and coming within a minute of knocking off the defending national champions. It didn't register that his performance that day — 21-for-30 in his first college game and making plays all over that SEC speed — was the kind of stuff from which legends are born. As football fans all around the country were tweeting, "Where did this kid come from?" Keeton was just mad that he lost.

"It's kind of sad to say, but I guess social media did it," Keeton said, explaining how one performance turned him into a legitimate star. "It motivated me to push past the stereotype we're just going to be in the game instead of trying to win."

Utah State has won a lot of football games since that day. It has won with Keeton and without him. It has won with two different head coaches and in two different conferences. It has risen from years of mediocrity to become one of the most solid, stable programs outside of a Power Five league with sparkling training facilities and a stadium renovation in progress.

The ascent, for all intents and purposes, started with that 42-38 loss to Auburn, a game the Aggies led by 10 points after Keeton led a 14-play touchdown drive with 3:38 remaining. Without that moment and the attention it brought Utah State and what suddenly seemed possible with the discovery of a gifted freshman quarterback, none of this may have happened.

NFL DRAFT HUB: Latest NFL Draft mock drafts, news, live picks, grades and analysis.

"There's no question Chuckie Keeton and his arrival as well as his development is as tightly interwoven into the fabric of Utah State's emergence as a program as anybody," said Matt Wells, the 42-year old Utah State alum who is 19-9 as its head coach.

On Sept. 3 Keeton will have the exceedingly rare distinction for a college quarterback of starting in his fifth consecutive season opener, and in many ways he's every bit the charismatic star he was as a freshman. Locally, he's had so many people introduce themselves to him over the years that he avoids going out because he's afraid he won't remember their names. Nationally, few players move the needle as much, particularly among those who don't play for elite programs.

As he heads into his final year, however, the aura around Keeton is no longer associated with expected brilliance against top competition but rather curiosity and relentless hope that after two major injuries and two lost seasons, the same player still even exists.

***

Keeton, who was in the middle of a brilliant junior season in fall 2013 when he tore both the ACL and MCL in his left knee, then came back to play just three games in 2014 before shutting it down, saw hopeful signs this summer that the old dynamic Chuckie was back. Whether it was the ability to pull away from a defender or throw on the run during a 7-on-7 drill, he at least felt like he had come a long way from last summer when he looked tentative and gimpy in Utah State's 38-7 season-opening loss at Tennessee.

"Even comparing it to my sophomore year, which has so far been my best year, I feel a little bit better than that," Keeton said. "It's probably a little bit of excitement on my end, but I think i'm ready."

And so is Utah State, which remarkably has kept winning despite an almost unfathomable two-year run of injuries to key players. Instead of folding when their franchise player went down in 2013, the Aggies won six of their final seven games. Last year, they finished 10-4 despite getting very little from Keeton and losing linebacker Kyler Fackrell, who might have been an early-round NFL draft pick, to a torn ACL in the season opener.

"I think it says a lot about the other players in the program and the foundation we've built through recruiting and then through development in setting the culture and re-setting the culture each year that we're able to overcome key, significant personnel losses," Wells said. "This program will always be bigger than one coach, one former head coach, one quarterback or one player and thats the power of having chemistry in the locker room."

In other words, the difference between Utah State now and in 2011 is the knowledge that it can win with or without Keeton on the field. The Aggies are rooting like heck, though, for him to make it through this final go-around without a physical setback, not only because is he capable of leading Utah State to a Mountain West title, but also because he just flat-out deserves a chance to fulfill the destiny that once seemed well within his grasp.

***

Though Keeton's national reputation was largely formed in close-call losses to top 25 teams — he fell two points short of upsetting Wisconsin in 2012 and lost 17-14 to Southern Cal early in 2013 — he has been just as brilliant when Utah State wasn't playing in the spotlight. As a sophomore, he threw for nearly 3,400 yards and 27 touchdowns. As a junior, he was completing 69.4% of his passes and had an 18-2 touchdown-to-interception ratio when he went down against BYU.

That's why it was so difficult to watch him try to come back last season when he clearly wasn't himself, finally suffering a setback early enough to take a medical redshirt.

But whatever has been robbed from him, there was too much investment on both sides not to give this one more shot.

After all, this was a player bigger schools recruited as a wide receiver but who Utah State coveted so much as a quarterback that then-coach Gary Andersen assigned Wells, who had just taken the job as quarterbacks coach, to cancel every recruiting stop and spend an entire day at Cypress Creek High School in suburban Houston to make sure Keeton signed with the Aggies.

And this was a coaching staff trusted so much by Keeton that he ignored the inquiries of "four or five" brand-name schools who (in violation of NCAA tampering rules, of course) attempted to convince him to transfer and play on a bigger stage.

"I don't want to say I was overlooked in high school; I think I was appropriately treasured at Utah State, and with that I've been able to grow because of it," he said. "I wasn't an amazing player. Looking back, I had a lot of flaws, but the coaches here trusted in me and believed in me."

But Keeton also wants to be known as more than the guy who blew up on social media a couple times and got close to some big victories but couldn't close the deal. After sparking Utah State's ascension four years ago, it would only be fitting if he finishes it with a flourish.

"He's been a leader in every sense of the word by his actions and his support in the midst of an individual crisis that happened in his life in how he supported the other quarterbacks, how he was visible in 6:30 a.m. quarterback meetings, in practice, controlling his attitude and his effort," Wells said.

"He has a spiritual side to him, a very mature side to him that understands something was taken away from him that he loved very, very dearly, but it didn't change how he treated other people or his outlook on life. Now you just hope for the kid he can end on a high note, stay healthy and play to the utmost of his abilities.

"With Chuckie Keeton at full speed, we have a chance to win every week."

ALL-TIME MOUNTAIN WEST FOOTBALL TEAM