It is so easy to emphasize the negative in life, and this could have been the case for Keenan Reynolds and Navy heading into the Military Bowl on Monday afternoon against Pittsburgh.
Navy did not win the American Athletic Conference’s West Division. It did not get to play in the first AAC Championship Game. It did not get a chance to play in the Peach or Fiesta Bowl.
Navy’s Keenan Reynolds did not get invited to the 2015 Heisman Trophy ceremony. He didn’t get that helicopter ride from Philadelphia — site of the Army-Navy Game — to the Downtown Athletic Club. He didn’t get the victory lap he deserved… no, not as a career honor, but for what he achieved in 2015. Reynolds was the target of opposing defenses, and they still couldn’t stop him. He led Navy to 10 regular season wins for just the second time in school history (1905 was the only other occasion when the Midshipmen won that many regular season games). In a year when the Heisman field did not establish as lofty a standard as it had in the past, the idea that Reynolds was not one of the five most outstanding players in the country was — at the very least — debatable. Moreover, Reynolds did in fact finish fifth in the Heisman voting.
The problem? The Heisman Trust only wants to invite players who can win the trophy. It de-emphasizes honoring as many players as possible. With a policy mandating the invitation of the top five players (really, what hurt can come from that?), Reynolds would have gained his deserved night. The Heisman Trust, though, would rather be exclusive than spacious and generous.
It left a sour taste in the mouths of many fans, but as the Military Bowl approached, it could have made Keenan Reynolds bitter or — at the very least — less than fully focused on the final game he had to play as a collegiate athlete.
“I’ve run my race.”
“We beat Army again.”
“Coach Ken (Niumatalolo) is staying.”
“It’s been a long season. We’ve had just a two-week break before this bowl game, whereas many teams have breaks of three and a half to four weeks.”
It would have been so easy for Keenan Reynolds to look back at the past, savor what he had done, and think he had done enough… all while allowing himself to feel slighted on several levels.
Bowl games are windows into the minds of athletes — not in terms of their permanent states of being or their career-long attitudes, but into their feelings in the present moment. Bowl games reveal which teams desperately need to win, and which ones are happy to get the trip and the swag. Bowl games have a way of identifying the teams which treat a situation as a competitive challenge, and the teams which aren’t able to power through a coaching change or respond to the frustrations of the 12-game regular season.
On Monday, we saw how much Keenan Reynolds and Navy cared about this final game of 2015:
Keenan Reynolds does what he does best: score 6 points. Via @ClippitTV https://t.co/UUJancWtnL
— The Comeback NCAA (@TheComebackNCAA) December 28, 2015
The Midshipmen converted one third down after another, and then — in the fourth quarter, after Pittsburgh’s offense came alive — a series of fourth downs en route to a 44-28 victory. Reynolds played one of his best games as an Annapolis man, becoming one of just six FBS quarterbacks to rush and pass for at least 4,000 yards in a career. He re-established the all-time mark for FBS touchdowns with 88.
Reynolds also set this mark, which is extraordinary when you consider all the great running quarterbacks in college football’s 146-year history:
Reynolds 48-yard run makes him the FBS record holder for career rushing yards by a QB. #NavyFootball
— Scott Strasemeier (@ScottStras) December 28, 2015
Navy won 11 games for the first time ever. The Midshipmen won their third straight bowl game (2013 Armed Forces Bowl, 2014 Poinsettia Bowl) for the first time in the history of the program.
It’s a good thing Navy and Keenan Reynolds didn’t emphasize the negative.
After winning the Military Bowl, a school and its decorated quarterback have so many more positives to point to.
