Nicole Auerbach

USA TODAY Sports

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Keenan Reynolds knew his plan seemed a bit far-fetched.

A freshman? Starting? Here? After the grueling plebe summer? Running Navy's vaunted triple-option?

But all of that didn't seem far-fetched to the most important person: Reynolds.

"The kid just knows what he wants," Navy offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper says. "This is my 20th year coaching. I'd never had a freshman play in this offense."

Reynolds always had been a starting quarterback, at every level, on every team he'd played. Something had to give. And Reynolds didn't want to leave anything to chance.

Instead of lying on a beach with his buddies, Reynolds spent spring break of his senior year here. He knew exactly what he needed to do to have a shot at that starting spot: He had to learn the option.

"He was everywhere," Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo says. "He'd sit in meetings, player meetings, coaches meetings. He wasn't very talkative. I should have known then that this guy was taking everything in. He was observing and soaking everything in, just like a sponge."

The Navy coaching staff had never seen anything like it; no commit had ever voluntarily skipped spring break to get a jump on the playbook. Reynolds' move confused more than one of his future teammates, too — at first.

"I thought, dang, it's your spring break? I'd go out and have fun," says senior fullback Noah Copeland, who hosted Reynolds and brought him to classes. "I know you love football, but dude. But he told me, 'I don't want to be one of those kids who was a superstar in high school and then doesn't do anything in college. I want to be something in college.' "

Now, he's in position to be more than merely something.

Two years removed from his freshman campaign — in which he earned the starting job by the sixth game — he's in the midst of rewriting Navy's and the NCAA's record books, and he is contending to be Navy's first Heisman Trophy winner since Roger Staubach in 1963.

Last season Reynolds rushed for 31 touchdowns — a Football Bowl Subdivision record — threw for eight more, and accounted for more than 2,400 yards of total offense. He also set the single-game record with seven rushing touchdowns in a triple-overtime win against San Jose State.

Count Staubach himself among Reynolds' many admirers, and among those pushing for Reynolds' inclusion in the Heisman conversation. And if he isn't in it this season, he's got next year, too.

"Every time I've seen him play, he's been fantastic," Staubach says. "Keenan is as elite a quarterback as there is in college football today, I think. He's in a system where he doesn't throw as much (as others), but he does everything you have to do as a quarterback, as a leader, to win."

'PEOPLE OVERLOOKED HIM'

Navy lists Reynolds as an inch shy of 6 feet tall.

Height is not a measure nor indicator of football intelligence, poise or even talent. But it is something that jumps out at coaches during recruiting.

"Everyone's looking for this 6-4 prototype of a quarterback," Niumatalolo says. "Because he's not that, people overlooked him."

Some FBS schools, such as Memphis, reached out, Reynolds says, wanting him to play wide receiver. A few triple-option teams, including Air Force, offered a chance to play quarterback, the position he loved.

"There was some interest from some big schools asking him to be a receiver, possibly," says David Martin, who coached Reynolds at Goodpasture Christian School (Madison, Tenn.). "That's not what he wanted to do. He maintained and charted the course he wanted to take, which was quarterback, and he stayed with it."

Martin did his part. He tried to convince college coaches to take a look at Reynolds, telling them to never underestimate this kid. He called Ashley Ingram, Navy's offensive line coach who recruits the Nashville area, and told him, "I've got a kid for you."

"I do remember the day I met him, and it took me about two minutes to figure out — not the football side of it — the kind of young man he was," Ingram says. "He had that 'it' quality about him, the way he talked. I met him at school, came back and watched him practice. I was super impressed by him as a player but more so as a young man. I thought he'd be a great fit here.

"We recruited him heavily. It's not like we stumbled across him and are shocked by what he's doing."

Ingram remembers showing Reynolds' film to then-Navy quarterback Ricky Dobbs, who was in the midst of one of the all-time great careers at the Academy. ("Up until Keenan, I thought Ricky was the best guy we'd ever had," Niumataolo says.) Dobbs took one look at Reynolds' tape and told Ingram, "That's the next Ricky Dobbs."

Navy was Reynolds' first offer and ultimately his choice. His mother told Niumatalolo her son would start for him as a freshman. "How do you tell a mom, well, we don't normally have that happen?" Niumatalolo says now, laughing.

Reynolds set about making that happen. He started with spring break, then worked after plebe summer to regain his strength, speed and muscle. He pored over the playbook any spare moment he had, trying to nail down the intricacies of the option offense, something he'd never run.

"Wherever I'd been before I got here, I'd started," Reynolds says. "I'd never been a backup in my life, and I'd been playing football since I was 5 years old. I had the mindset that I was going to try to compete for the starting spot no matter where I was.

"Once you're the backup, you're only one play away. I had the door open for me, had the opportunity and haven't looked back since."

PRODUCTION AND POISE

That door opened for Reynolds when he entered Navy's game against Air Force in the fourth quarter of his freshman season. With nine minutes left in regulation, Reynolds came in for injured Trey Miller and orchestrated a touchdown drive and successful two-point conversion to tie the game, eventually leading the Midshipmen to victory in overtime.

"After that, confidence in him skyrocketed," Niumatalolo says. "We handed him the mantle. 'You're our quarterback.' He's taken it with great humility and great pride, and he's worked his butt off."

Reynolds' first start came the following week, against Central Michigan. His mother waited outside the postgame locker room, waiting to bask in the aftermath of the start she'd predicted. She smiled and said, "I told you. I told you."

Navy won six of its final seven regular-season games in 2012.

None of this came as much of a surprise for Donnie Reynolds, Keenan's father. He'd watched and coached his son since Keenan was 4 and passed time in the backyard throwing a football up in the air and catching it himself. He'd seen Keenan master various offensive formations by middle school. Donnie, who had played strong safety at UT-Martin, also taught his son how to read defenses starting at an early age. He explained how and when defenders can "kill" a quarterback, and prepared Reynolds to recognize and avoid those situations. "If you can understand what the defense is trying to manipulate and do to you, it's easier for you to play," Donnie says.

Reynolds' ability to read and react quickly to defenses is one of his most impressive traits. The Navy coaches trust his decision-making so much they've long allowed him to change plays on the line of scrimmage whenever he thinks he needs to.

"You see guys in the NFL checking plays really, really late, with one second," Niumatalolo says. "You're not going to tell Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, 'Hey, don't snap the ball there.' (Reynolds) started doing that in a game and I said, 'Let him go.' I was nervous we'd get a delay of game, but he knew exactly what was going on. They were shifting late. He was looking at the clock, changing it late: 2, 1 second, he'd snap the ball. I was like, 'Wow.'

"I never had anyone who had the clarity of mind to do all that, wait to see what the defense is doing and change last second."

It's the way Reynolds does this, too, that impresses. He's calm and always in control, making it easy for coaches and teammates to trust him in high-pressure situations. Reynolds picked up his preternatural poise from his grandfathers, Donnie says.

"You'd never know something bad happened because they never wavered, they never showed any stress," Donnie says. "The kitchen caught on fire one day. Everybody was running around with their head cut off; my father was calm and put the little fire out. He did what he had to do. Same way with my father-in-law."

After a year of running the option, Reynolds was poised for a breakout sophomore season. And he delivered.

"I've been here 17 years," Niumatalolo says. "I know the history of this place, and there have obviously been some great quarterbacks, like Roger Staubach, and all the great guys since I've been here. He's as good as anybody since I've been here.

"To say one of the best that's ever been here, there's no doubt. His numbers speak for themselves."

And he has two seasons left.

'EVERY LITTLE BOY'S DREAM'

Donnie Reynolds knew the Heisman chatter was going to come this summer, so he sought out advice from someone who knew a little something about all that: Eddie George. George has a son who plays youth football for Donnie; George won the Heisman in 1995 while a senior at Ohio State.

"He said, 'I never thought about winning the Heisman. I just went out there and played,' " Donnie says. "That's what he's doing. He's not thinking about the Heisman."

Instead, Reynolds is focusing on getting himself better, and setting the tone for his teammates to do the same. He skipped a family vacation this summer so he could work out at school. He's been sitting in offensive line and running backs meetings this offseason, trying to understand more and more of the offense.

Reynolds' understanding of the offense and his skill set — which includes a strong throwing arm, something option quarterbacks do not always have — have allowed Navy to expand its offense. If the Mids can go shotgun one drive and return to the option the next, they'll be much tougher for opponents to prepare for.

"It's going to make us very multiple, very hard to defend," says Jasper, the offensive coordinator. "People can't spend all their time preparing for the option. There's another part of the offense they'll have to get ready for."

Says Niumatalolo: "His football IQ is off the charts, which allows you to tinker with things."

Next semester, Reynolds will start to put in his preferences for service selection. His top two choices are intelligence ("which is pretty difficult to get," he says) and aviation.

"I've always had those thoughts — what would it be like at a regular college?" Reynolds says. "But I'm definitely thankful for being here. We definitely go through some things that a lot of teams and players don't get to go through. It's a rewarding experience.

"You learn how to manage things much better, how to deal with a lot of problems at once, stress. You learn how to manage it all. I enjoy it, and I wouldn't trade it."

Those are things that help on the gridiron, too — the stress, the discipline, managing people's personalities. They're what might lead him into the Heisman conversation. Or, at the very least, closer to achieving the goal he outlined to Copeland, one of his closest friends on the team: Reynolds wants to be an All-American this season. And he knows, in order to accomplish any of that, Navy needs to win some football games.

Ohio State beckons; Navy opens its season against the No. 6 Buckeyes on Saturday.

"Every little boy's dream is: I want to win the Heisman; I want to be in New York and hoist the trophy," Reynolds says. "But when you get caught up in your own hype — they call it reading your own clippings — that's when you start to fail.

"I could go in Aug. 30th and play the worst game of my life, and all that preseason hype will have never mattered. My main focus is getting in the best shape — not just physically but mentally — that I can be in so I'm sharp and ready to go for my team."