Keenum near biggest (of his many) milestones

HOUSTON The play Tyron Carrier says he will remember years from now when somebody asks him what it was like to play with Case Keenum on those crazy Houston teams is, of all things, an incomplete pass. "He threw me a no-look pass my sophomore year. He threw it, and I was like, 'Is the ball coming to me?'" Carrier said. "I actually dropped it, because I was so surprised he threw it. I'm surprised he hasn't dropped back and thrown one behind his back." Keenum has done just about everything else. The Houston quarterback most likely will set the NCAA's all-time passing yardage record when the 14th-ranked Cougars travel to UAB Saturday. He needs 267 yards to pass Timmy Chang, who threw for 17,072 yards at Hawaii from 2000-04. Keenum threw for 534 last week. The passing yardage record is the last and biggest record still in front of Keenum. He already has the career marks for touchdown passes (139 and counting) and total offense (17,692 and counting). He is the most prolific passer who has ever played college football. He is a fringe Heisman candidate. He is a college graduate. He is a husband. And he has a dimple in his left cheek when he smiles that could charm your grandmother right out of her tapioca pudding. The University of Houston athletic department is proud of all this, but it is not making a big show of it. Its Web site hosts a page called "A Case for the Heisman," and will put him on national TV at any opportunity, but there are no billboards and no Case Keenum bobbleheads getting stuffed in beat writers' mailboxes. When he set the previous records, they made an announcement on the field and Keenum was handed a game ball, surrounded by his teammates. He shows it to the crowd, then everybody goes inside. "It's a reflection of the culture of our athletic department," athletic director Mack Rhoades said. "We prefer to let our results speak for themselves. That doesn't mean we're not going to push in certain ways for Case to be included in any of the Heisman Trophy discussions, because we believe he should be." The Heisman race is just one reason it is a thrilling time to be part of Houston's athletic department, and it is probably a little more than a simple coincidence that it all seems to be reaching its apex right as Keenum reaches his. The final home game of 2007, Keenum's first year as a starter, 12,139 people showed up to watch the Cougars beat Texas Southern for their eighth win of the season. Average attendance for conference home games that year was 22,781. This year, that number is 31,448, in a stadium that holds 32,000. So it is no surprise that Houston is in the planning stages of building a new 50,000-seat stadium. It also is reportedly about to join the Big East Conference. Athletic department revenues are up, and so is the school's national brand. There is, of course, no way of quantifying just how much of all this has been due to the Keenum Effect. From the president to the athletic director to the media relations department to the strong safety on the scout team, everybody has played some role in making it all happen. When football coach Kevin Sumlin says all these records are team records, he is expressing a specific idea about Keenum's accomplishments, but he also is tapping into the UH zeitgeist. "What's been special about what's happened is Case the person, and certainly he's a leader on the football team, but to say he's been responsible for it all by himself really is a discredit to the rest of the team," Rhoades said. "Case would absolutely agree with that." He would, and has. Nonetheless, it is his face on television all the time, his name in the talking heads' mouths and his name that will actually be inked into the record books. This is a reality that has sneaked up on his father, Steve Keenum, who coached Case at Wylie High School in Abilene, Texas, and is now the director of that area's Fellowship of Christian Athletes. "Holy cow," he said. "Here we are." That isn't quite the sensation his son feels. This is because Case has been the one answering question after question about record after record for year after year. He doesn't appear to revel much in the records, other than to say, "It's awesome, man," which is one of his favorite phrases. He's pretty aw-shucksy about it. You get the sense it will be nice for him to just set the record already and move on to this undefeated season Houston has going. "I don't know if relief is the right word," he said. "I couldn't really tell you. It's definitely going to be pretty cool to get there. I don't really know how else to put it." Steve Keenum isn't sure he'll ever fully grasp what his son has done. "It's always been a little bit surreal for us," he said. "I'm not real sure if and when the reality will ever come home. For us he's just Case and doing what he does." What is it, exactly, that he does? He operates an offensive system that runs quickly and maximizes the opportunities presented by the forward pass, but he is hardly the only quarterback to do that. He also does this in a conference that, generally speaking, does not attract the best high school players, particularly not on the defensive line. This will come up in any conversation about Keenum and the Heisman. Still, he leads the NCAA with 3,219 yards and has thrown 32 touchdown passes against three interceptions, a ratio which also leads the country. He is on pace to throw 48 touchdowns and four interceptions during the regular season. He averages more than 10 yards per pass attempt, which he has never done for a full season before. The highest passer efficiency rating ever recorded for a full season at the FBS level is 186.0, by Colt Brennan of Hawaii in 2006. Keenum's rating after eight games is 194.1. "He may be playing at the best level he's ever played," Steve Keenum said. The reasons for this are both mysterious and obvious. The obvious ones are that he is in his sixth season in the program and that most of his receivers are veterans too. Houston's top three receivers, Carrier, Patrick Edwards and Justin Johnson, are all fifth-year seniors. "Those guys have played a lot of football together," Sumlin said. Just last week, each of those receivers checked into a different route at the line of scrimmage, then somehow subtly communicated it to Keenum. All three times it went for a touchdown. Carrier says these things happen all the time. "I never have to say anything to those guys," Keenum said. "It just takes time to do that. That's pretty priceless." But there is something else. Keenum is not big (he is listed generously at 6-foot-2), and NFL scouts are not particularly compelled by his physical ability. "He's just got that uncanny ability to look at something and know what's fixing to happen and put a ball in a certain place," Steve Keenum said. "That's just a unique skill set not everybody's gifted with. I think that's in a lot of ways more important than the other physical attributes people talk about." Sometimes he doesn't even look.