It was no coincidence that Keenan Reynolds, as an athlete for the United States Naval Academy, was able to set records for hurried touchdowns (88) and hurried yards (4,559) by a quarterback in the NCAA top division.
The 2015 American Athletic Conference Offensive Player of the Year, who became one of only four people whose jerseys were taken off by the midshipmen, was in a league of his own as a college athlete. However, since making it into the National Football League (NFL), Reynolds has had to switch to a wide receiver, a position he had never played before, which led to him spending his first two professional seasons in training squads without ever appearing regularly in the season.
It might also be helpful to point out that Reynolds had to balance two careers, one as an American football player and another as a Navy reserve officer. This means that while his teammates were actively training in the off-season, he had to report for Navy duty.
Keenan Reynolds Bio
Keenan Reynolds was born in Antioch, a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, on December 13, 1994, the son of Jacqueline and Donald Reynolds. Reynolds’ father, who was a former college soccer player, introduced his son to sports at the age of five. From that age, Reynolds began playing the sport regularly and was always considered the best player of his peers.
For his high school education and career, the young athlete enrolled at Goodpasture Christian School in Madison, another Nashville suburb, where he was named a starter on the soccer team from day one until he graduated in 2012. Reynolds earned three more awards by competing in four different sports activities and shining at the same time he was a member of the National Honor Society.
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Keenan Reynolds led his team to successive district championships and also received high marks. He received offers from a number of college programs, most notably from the Naval and Air Force academies. He then chose the Navy because he was impressed with their football record and campus. At the beginning of his first year with the Midshipmen, Reynolds was the team’s fourth quarterback. However, in the fourth game of the season, Reynolds was made a starter after proving his worth by leading his team to a comeback victory against the Air Force after being called up after an injury to the starting quarterback. This made him the third rookie in the history of the Navy School to ever become a starter.
In 2013, his second college season, Reynolds scored 29 stormy touchdowns, setting records for a single season. He also set the record for the most touchdowns (7) in one game by a quarterback in NCAA history. By 2015, Reynolds broke the record for the most touchdowns in his career in the history of the Football Bowl Subdivision. Later in the season, he broke the same record in NCAA Division I (85) before setting a new record at 88. His performances and records later earned him a candidacy for this year’s Heisman Trophy. He finished fifth on the voting list and also received the Pat Tillman Award.
Facts about the American Football Wide Receiver
NFL Career
Keenan Reynold was not invited to the 2016 NFL Scouting Combine after graduating from college because it was not clear whether his Navy commitments would allow him to pursue a career as a football player. Service Academy graduates are required to serve as active-duty officers for approximately five years before pursuing other interests.
However, due to a temporary waiver by the Department of Defense under the Barack Obama administration, which allows elite graduates of a service academy to postpone their active service, Reynolds was drafted in the sixth round with the 182nd overall selection of the Baltimore Ravens’ 2016 NFL Draft.
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The record-breaking college quarterback joined the Ravens as a wide receiver because his playing style as a triple-option quarterback was not used in the NFL. This meant that he had to learn how to play his newfound position, and due to the steep learning curve that he went through, he was restricted to the team’s training squad for the 2016 season.
The Baltimore Ravens finally released him on September 1, 2017, so that he could sign with the Washington Redskins in November 2017. He was reinstated in the training squad of his new team, which eventually dismissed him without him playing a single game. Keenan Reynolds is now under contract with the Seattle Seahawks, where he hopes to change his fate to finally play an NFL game.
Keenan Reynolds Navy Career
Keenan Reynolds currently holds the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade in the United States Navy. He is a Cryptologic Warfare Officer assigned to the Cryptologic Warfare Group Six in Fort Meade, Maryland, while he is also attached to a reserve center in Nashville.
In the 2018 off-season, Reynolds was in Pensacola, Florida, where he attended an eight-week Information Warfare Basic Course (IWBC) at the Center for Information Dominance in Corry Station.