Michigan football's addition of QB Mikey Keene makes sense for Wolverines
Like most head coaches, Sherrone Moore doesn’t like to reveal too much to the public.
But only six days after Michigan football signed the nation’s top high school senior, Bryce Underwood, the U-M head coach told reporters he was in the market for another quarterback with a much different profile. The ideal candidate, he said, would be a transfer with experience.
“A guy that is going to be a great leader, a great teammate, obviously has the ability to play and has got to be a great fit,” Moore continued, as he outlined his preferred criteria.
Mikey Keene, the former Fresno State starter who committed to the Wolverines on Monday, checks off many of those boxes, and more importantly, raises the floor at a position that was a weak spot throughout this season.
Less than a year after J.J. McCarthy led Michigan to a College Football Playoff title and became the first quarterback from the school to be selected in the NFL draft’s opening round since 1987, the Wolverines were saddled with the second-least productive passing attack in the Power Four. Michigan botched the succession plan for McCarthy, investing its faith in three unproven options — Davis Warren, Alex Orji and Jack Tuttle. Each was given a chance to run the offense. But none of them excelled, as Moore spent the first seven weeks rotating from one to the next. Eventually, he settled on Warren, a former walk-on who finished the regular season with a 63.5% completion rate, a 5.7 yards-per-attempt average and a 112.4 passer rating.
Keene would end up with better numbers than Warren in those key categories while attempting a higher volume of throws.
Around these parts, Keene is remembered for a gutsy performance against the Wolverines in the 2024 opener, when he repeatedly challenged All-American cornerback Will Johnson and pulled the Bulldogs within striking distance of Michigan deep into the fourth quarter. Johnson eventually got the best of Keene, when he intercepted a flare to the sideline and returned it 86 yards to the end zone to seal a 30-10 victory. But Keene’s overall performance was impressive. Against a superior opponent, he made decisive reads and released the ball quickly to neutralize Michigan coordinator Wink Martindale’s blitz-heavy strategy.
Now, less than four months after that visit to Ann Arbor, he is set to join the team he tried to vanquish. Upon arriving there, he will reunite with Chip Lindsey — Keene’s former offensive coordinator at UCF, recently hired to call plays at Michigan.
Keene’s familiarity with Lindsey’s playbook, which he learned during the 2022 season, should ease his transition. Lindsey’s offenses in the past have featured a heavy diet of screens and quick passing concepts. During Lindsey’s two-year stint at UNC, half of the throws attempted by starters Drake Maye and Jacoby Criswell traveled behind the line of scrimmage or within 10 yards of it. That suits Keene, a 5-foot-11, 200-pound player who operates like a point guard. This past season, the ball came out of Keene’s hand in 2.73 seconds on average, which is a hair faster than the release time registered by any of the quarterbacks who played for Michigan this season.
If Keene continues be a solid distributor from the pocket, he can provide a bridge to Underwood — the 6-foot-4, 208-pound new enrollee who far exceeds him in stature and talent but doesn’t come close to matching him in years spent at the college level.
Keene's extensive track record is where his true value lies, offering the Wolverines the kind of security they didn’t have this past year. With 2,233 snaps under his belt, he fits the bill of the experienced transfer quarterback Moore was seeking.
Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin.