Huntsville Tough — Eric Schmid and K.C. Keeler Prove That Sam Houston is the Gutsiest National Champion in the Land

DALLAS, TX – With his bright blonde hair and deep blue eyes, Eric Schmid looks like he could be a cast member for Richard Linklater’s next coming-of-age movie set in Huntsville. He certainly does not jump out as the toughest quarterback around.

Then again, Schmid’s coach K.C. Keeler, who still prefers the type of large wraparound black shades favored by villains in 1980s action movies on sunny days, does not look like a thinking man’s coach either. Yet there they are, the gutsiest quarterback a commuter college of 20,000 has ever had and the coach who thinks of everything, refusing to let their larger-than-large dreams die.

Eric Schmid and K.C. Keeler have national championship level dreams. And they’ll make them come true together.

“We have a warrior at quarterback,” Keeler says. “A warrior.”

On a wild Sunday in Frisco, Texas that features everything from a 71-minute lightning delay to a three-minute halftime to needing to drive the field to win the national title, a warrior is the only thing that will do. To win the first national championship in school history, Sam Houston State will have to be the toughest team on the toughest day of all.

So Eric Schmid takes hit after hit. And keeps coming. He spits up blood. And keeps coming. He turns his ankle over. And keeps coming. There are Terminator robots who give in before this kid straight out of The Woodlands — and central casting.

In the end, Schmid and Sam Houston have just enough to beat South Dakota State 23-21 on Schmid’s touchdown pass between two defenders with 16 seconds left. Toughest QB. Toughest Coach. National Champs.

Welcome to the club, Sam Houston. This is a FCS title, the level below the FBS world that the University of Texas, Texas A&M University and the University of Houston compete in, of course. But it feels bigger than anything on this May Sunday. COVID pushing the FCS season to the spring has showcased this level like never before, given it the type of national sports window it’s never enjoyed previously.

The idea that FCS is willingly giving that up and move back to the fall this September for its next season makes little sense. Not if you truly want to grow this level of college football as something more than fodder for FBS guarantee games. But that’s a worry (and a debate) for another day.

On this day, Sam Houston and South Dakota State put on the most entertaining show a packed sports Sunday has. Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors are playing the Memphis Grizzles for the eighth seed and an easier path out of the NBA’s play-in tournament, but nothing can come close to the drama that Schmid and Keeler produce on a rain-soaked field in Frisco.

“I’m kind of still in shock,” Schmid says over Zoom when asked to describe his emotions. “I was just elated really, knowing that we went down and picked up the slack when we needed to. But right now, I just can’t even express my emotions.”

This kind of game, this kind of season, this kind of journey can do that to you.

Eric Schmid and K.C. Keeler’s Bumpy Journeys

Schmid came out of The Woodlands High School as the blazing quarterback with the 4.4 40 yard dash speed. Now, he’s the grittiest guy in the huddle, the QB who stays calm while spitting up blood. And he’ll have a great chance to win two national titles in a less than seven month span now.

The presence and foresight of Keeler all but assures the Bearkats will be competing for the 2022 FCS crown too. The coach who likes to say he has “a PhD in playoff football” overcame his own doubts. Or at least, his doubts that someone else would give him the chance to keep coaching.

For K.C. Keeler was fired by Delaware, his alma mater, in 2012 despite making three national championship games and winning it all once. It is a firing that really still has never been adequately explained by the Delaware administration. And it left Keeler feeling like a coach without a future.

“I got a little emotional with our players last night,” Keeler says. “I told them — I said there was a point that I didn’t know if I was ever going to coach again.

“Not because I didn’t want to. I just didn’t know if anyone was going to hire me again.”

Sam Houston athletic director Bobby Williams did. Which put Keeler and Schmid in Toyota Stadium together on the May day that no one could have anticipated. After COVID pushed the season back half a year, after lightning created a scary scene and brought another delay, after a season spent without a locker room to change in, it’s Sam Houston’s ball down 21-17. Less than six minutes left. One timeout remaining. Sixty five yards away from a national title.

Do you have what it takes?

“You would think for us going into the last drive of the season for a national championship, there would have been some panic on the sideline,” Keeler says. “. . . There was resolve. I have to give my quarterback all the praise because of his calm demeanor. His willingness to to just say, ‘OK, let’s go.’ And not question. And not panic.

“. . . He’s that guy.”

Even before Schmid whips the football between two defensive backs and hits Ife Adeyi in the hands as the clock hits 00:16, K.C. Keeler already knows the answer. Because Eric Schmid is a lot like him.

Toughest QB. Toughest Coach. National Champions.