College football’s all-time rushing touchdowns record is about to be broken. It could happen this Saturday, or maybe the next, but very soon the record will fall. And when that occurs, the new record holder will not be a running back from the SEC, or the Big Ten, or one of football’s other prestigious conferences, but rather a 5ft 11in, 205lb quarterback at Navy.

Maybe then the rest of the country will know about Keenan Reynolds.

For three and a half seasons he has been running Navy’s option offense brilliantly, pitching the ball to his running backs or sprinting himself past defenders who are unable to catch him. Two years ago he threw and passed for more than 1,000 yards. He should finish this season with the kind of numbers that have won men the Heisman Trophy. But no matter what he does this fall he will not get the Heisman. He’s not at a big enough program in a big enough league. The player who will have college football’s rushing touchdown record will go in history as an interesting name on top of a superstar list.

The current record holder is former Wisconsin All-America running back Montee Ball with 77 touchdowns. Reynolds has 73. Among those behind him are Ricky Williams, Cedric Benson, Ron Dayne and another quarterback, Colin Kaepernick. All of these men played in the NFL. Reynolds may very well not. Teams will likely judge him as a player without a position and as a Navy student with a five-year obligation to serve in the military. Arrangements can be made to let him play professional football but those are not guaranteed.

Reynolds might get the touchdown record and then disappear from football forever.

“He’s probably more focused than I’ve ever seen him in his career, because he understands this is his last ride,” his father Donny says. “What that means is he may not get to step out between those white lines after his senior year so what he’s trying to do is make the best of it. Every game is one less game of playing football.

“He looks at it as: ‘I know I can play today’ and he goes out and stays focused.”

Navy plays at No15 Notre Dame on Saturday in a game that could well define Reynolds’s time at the school. The Fighting Irish are probably the best team on Navy’s schedule, and with the Midshipmen 4-0, a victory could wake the country to Reynolds and possibly put the team in the top 25. It might be the biggest game of his career.

Those who watch on Saturday will see what Reynolds does best. They will see why Navy’s coaches rave about his decision-making. They will see him take a snap and slide along the offensive line, letting blocks develop and then either pitch the ball to a trailing running back or dash forward himself. Occasionally, he will throw too. He has come to do all of this with such studied precision that he makes the right choice most of the time.

“He’ll make you pay for every mistake,” Air Force linebacker Patrick Healy says.

To Donny Reynolds, who coached Keenan as a child and continues to break down his son’s performance, Keenan’s understanding of the option has become extraordinary. He urges Keenan to watch as much film as he can of opposing teams, looking for the way the other players move in certain situations and then exploit that trend.

No one in Donny Reynolds’s mind ran the option better than former Oklahoma quarterback JC Watts, who later became a Republican congressman. Watts saw everything develop in front of him and then broke the defenses apart. Keenan, he says, is doing the same.

“There’s nobody that stepped onto the field until my son stepped on the field that runs the option as well as JC Watts,” Donny Reynolds says.

The bigger question is how does Keenan Reynolds have time to watch all this film? Here is his class schedule this fall:

Financial Analysis

National Security Decision Making in the Cyber Age



Politics of Irregular Warfare



Political Philosophy



Sports Economics



Tennis (as a school physical education requirement)



Few college quarterbacks would dare to take a class load this demanding in the spring, let alone during football season. But this is also the reality of the Naval Academy, a school Reynolds calls “the top public school in the nation.” Football is important to the prestige and image of the college, but it is secondary to the purpose of developing military leaders.

While other top college players talk loosely about “going to war” in the NFL, Reynolds might really find himself in war. This is the grim reality of sports at service academies. He does not address the possibilities because he doesn’t know what next year will bring – a chance at the pros, an assignment overseas, a desk job with no time for sports – his future is something he cannot control. Unlike the offense that is so perfect for his skills, the option is not his. And so he enjoys what he has now.

In that context, his class list, which has him going to bed at midnight and waking before six, is not a burden but an exciting challenge.

“They’re very, very cool classes and definitely getting into what modern warfare is like,” he says. “It’s being able to dive deeper than what you see on the news or what you heard about and actually see the policy and actually see what’s going on in the world today and talk about terrorism and talk about why it happens – things you don’t really think about.”

Reynolds didn’t seek Navy when he was in high school in Nashville. They pursued him, as did Air Force. Often the service academies wind up recruiting the same players; those with good grades who are lower-level FBS prospects. As a quick, bright, but undersized quarterback, he was a natural for the academies.

Donny Reynolds says most big schools who looked at his son saw him as a slot back or defensive back. But Keenan Reynolds didn’t want to play defense. “Dad, I’m not tackling anybody,” he told his father. He wanted to play quarterback. And the only places that really wanted him as a quarterback were Navy and Air Force.

He chose Navy because he loved the school and Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo seemed honest about his future. The school had a junior quarterback and was committed to that player as a starter for two years Niumatalolo told the family. Reynolds had a chance to be the starter when that player left in two years.

Reynolds mother, Jackie, cut off the coach.

“Don’t doubt him,” she said of her son.

Four games into Reynolds freshman season he replaced the starter, Trey Miller, who was hurt. He’s been starting ever since.

Reynolds doesn’t care to talk much about his impending touchdown record. Players at military schools don’t often speak at length about themselves. This is how they are trained. The individual is never bigger than the group. When asked about the record he talks about his offensive linemen opening up holes and the skill of the other running backs who allow him to break free. As the topic turns to himself, his words get short.

The most he will say about the record is to acknowledge the other men on the list and say: “It’s an honor, I’m just thankful to be in the same category as those guys.”

Donny Reynolds later nods when told this.

“He doesn’t care (about the record),” Donny Reynolds says. “He doesn’t care. He’d rather hand that ball of five times to the same guy to score. He wants everybody to score. He wants everybody to be in the game. His whole analogy to play team football is this: ‘If I can get my teammates into the flow of the game and not sitting back and watching me go then I am going to watch them go and I can go when I need to.”

Last Saturday, against Air Force, Reynolds almost scored three touchdowns. He had runs of 54, 67 and 40 yards that nearly got him into the end zone each time, had he not been taken down by desperation tackles. After the second of those runs, he tried twice to score from the one yard line before giving the ball to Demond Brown who scored on third down. As Brown crossed the goal line, Reynolds looked to the Navy sideline and wildly pumped his fist. He was no closer to the record but Navy was up 21-0 in a rivalry game it would win 33-11. That seemed better than a touchdown record, even one that can last for eternity.

“That’s him,” Donny Reynolds says. “He doesn’t care who scores. He cares about the W. When he goes to play Notre Dame if he doesn’t score a touchdown and they win that is more big to him than him scoring five touchdowns and they lose. That’s his whole thing. He says: ‘We did this.’”

But soon Montee Ball’s record will fall. Soon the man with the most rushing touchdowns in college football history will be a quarterback who might never get the chance to play in the NFL. Soon the attention will all be on Keenan Reynolds. The moment will be his.

Whether he wants it or not.