HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- Sam Houston linebacker Trey Fields has seen it before. In the FCS semifinals three years ago, the Bearkats came back from a 21-point halftime deficit to beat James Madison. A week later Sam Houston won a national championship.
So, when the Bearkats fell behind 22-0 last Saturday against rival Texas State, Fields knew his team wouldn't panic.
Three hours later, Sam Houston head coach K.C. Keeler stood in the middle of his team and did some disco-inspired dance moves following a 40-39 win at NRG Stadium, the largest comeback in school history. The Bearkats are 4-1, already exceeding the program's win total (three) from 2023, its first season jumping from the FCS to the FBS.
"We gritty," Fields said. "We gritty."
A senior linebacker from Danciger, Texas -- a small town an hour southeast of Houston with a population in the hundreds -- Fields didn't have any FBS offers coming out of high school. What he does have is a national championship ring on his finger and the attitude that carried the Bearkats there.
Keeler built his program on a foundation he describes as: "This is a game for grown ass men. We're going to go to battle. But when that battle is over, because this is also a game of honor, we're going to shake their hand."
Leave your egos at the door in Huntsville. You're not a fit if you bring one. The program has the same attitude it had three years ago when it won an FCS national championship. It is also operates very much like an FCS program.
It was sudden transition to FBS football. Texas and Oklahoma tipped over realignment dominos that are still falling, which created opportunities for schools like Sam Houston to jump up faster than those at the university would have ever imagined.
It made sense for Sam Houston to make the move. But the Bearkats had to be OK being house-poor, so to speak. They have the lowest revenue ($23.6 million in 2023, per the Knight Commission) in Conference-USA.
That won't get your far in college football's name, image and likeness era. Said Keeler: "We probably have, I'm guessing, the least amount of NIL money in the country right now."
Some schools are in the tens of millions. Sam Houston is in the tens of thousands.
Yet here the Bearkats sit at 4-1 with victories over an AAC school (Rice), a potential Sun Belt contender (Texas State) and the Conference USA runner up from a year ago (New Mexico State). They'll attempt to continue that momentum Thursday evening with a trip to UTEP, which will be broadcast at 9 p.m. ET on the CBS Sports Network.
"We're built uniquely," Keeler said.
Said his 29-year-old general manager Clayton Barnes: "Every nickel and dime matters. Everything counts."
Willie Fritz went 40-15 at Sam Houston from 2010-13, taking the Bearcats to two FCS runner-up seasons. When he left for Georgia Southern, Sam Houston leadership was able to pull off a rare feat: Replace a wildy-successful coach with an even more accomplished one.
Keeler's office is sparsely adorned. Most pictures sit on the floor instead of hung on the wall. But one thing is front and center on black desk: Championship rings and a national championship trophy.
The AFCA awarded Keeler Coach of the Year honors in 2010. He earned the Eddie Robinson Award in 2016. He's the only coach in FCS history to win national championships with two different programs (Delaware in 2003, where he coached Joe Flacco, and Sam Houston in 2020). Keeler is the all-time leader in FCS playoff wins, with 25.
As the 65-year-old puts it: "Winning won't keep me in this game, but losing will push me out."
Losing eats at his soul. Yet Keeler vividly remembers coming home after yet another close loss last season -- the Bearkats lost eight of their nine games last year by 14 points or fewer, including an 0-5 start -- only to hear his wife, Janice, say: "You seem OK."
Thirty-nine years together tells you a lot about a person. She was right. Keeler had just left the weight room thinking: "Our guys are killing it. They have each other's backs. They're going to fight through."
He just needed to make some changes to make the lift easier. On the FCS level, Keeler felt like his roster was better in nine of 12 games every season. He just had to win three when the talent matchups were even. On the FBS level? Every game is 50-50.
"The margin of error is just so much slimmer," Keeler said.
Sam Houston attacked the margins to improve. Keeler felt like his team struggled with short weeks that are so common in Conference USA. So, he shifted to a night practice schedule during short weeks to give his team more time study ahead of the on-field work. He felt Sam Houston had too many stupid retaliation penalties that cost the team games. The staff hammered it home. Now, Sam Houston ranks just eighth nationally in penalties per game.
Sam Houston didn't feed its players every day last season. At the larger programs, players have more food than they know what to do with -- all color-coded up and down the buffet line so gainers know what to eat and those needing to cut weight know what to avoid. At Sam Houston, players would often leave campus hungry. Keeler went to the boosters explaining what he needed. They came through.
Bearkats players now get at least one meal every day. Post-workout chocolate milk is out. Protein shakes are in.
"We couldn't say, 'It's all fine,' Keeler said. "We went 3-9."
More than anything, Sam Houston's shift from C-USA bottom feeder to potential conference contender is about depth. Specifically, the way the Bearkats have formulated their second-year FBS roster.
Injuries piled up for Sam Houston last year. The program didn't have built in depth to whether those losses after shifting from a depth chart full of quarter-scholarship depth pieces to, a year later, needing 85 scholarship-level players capable of playing snaps. That's changed in short order.
Twenty-one Bearkat offensive players and 21 Bearkat defensive players have played at least 49 snaps through four games. Some of that is situational -- injuries, margin of victory -- but 42 players from a two-deep playing that often is unusual.
Liberty, the defending C-USA champions and the school with the biggest budget by far in the conference, has played 36 players that many reps. Texas State, which plays more snaps than almost anyone in the Group of Five because of its tempo, has played 37. Georgia, a program with more on-paper talent than anyone, is at 32, which speaks to something Kirby Smart bemoaned earlier this offseason:
"I feel like we have less depth than we've ever had," Smart said. "That's a common theme talking to other coaches I talk to. I call it the deterioration of football because every year we've been here, I feel like we've had more players of capable of going in and playing winning football. Every year that goes down."
Smart is complaining about the transfer portal and how it puts a strain on quality depth. Georgia's twos and threes believe they can start elsewhere.
Sam Houston doesn't have that problem. Only one of its starters from last year transferred to another FBS school. As Keeler said: "It starts with retention."
There are still 10 players on Sam Houston's roster with rings on their finger from the 2020 national championship season. The Bearkats have gotten creative to keep them. Ahead of the team's FBS transition, they redshirted around 20 of the program's best players. They got to play in four games -- the final Battle of Piney Woods between Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin and against Texas A&M -- but were redshirted to compete in Conference USA in 2023 and, in some cases, 2024.
Sam Houston's NIL money doesn't really go to transfers. Keeler remembers talking to three transfers on a visit when the portal opened last winter. They wanted to negotiate money. He told them: "You're at the wrong place." Those NIL dollars, the few Sam Houston has, goes to leaders on the team who meet academic and social requirements.
That fosters a healthier locker room in Keeler's eyes. A program built on grit won't win by dropping bags on transfers who haven't been part of the program's culture.
"The guys know who's getting money," Barnes said. "If you're all of a sudden putting all your chips on one or two guys, the guys are all of a sudden looking around saying, 'He's not producing, why is he getting paid?' You don't have that problem when you're a lot more equal across the board."
The foundation of Sam Houston's roster is high school recruiting, specifically in the Lone Star State. All but one of the Bearkats' high school signees the last two years is from Texas. Most of the roster is from within a three-hour radius of campus, which is located about an hour north of Houston. Families can easily see their sons, nephews and grandsons play.
Sam Houston is also recruiting better than ever. Part of that is the FBS transition, yes. But Keeler said the Bearkats are seeing a better quality of high school prospect fall to them because bigger schools are so transfer-focused.
"Everyone is taking the easy way out," Keeler said. "It's no, 'Let's get these guys, develop them and let them be the fabric of the program."
But this is college football in the 2024 landscape, which means unless your name is Dabo Swinney, you'd better be looking to the transfer portal to find value. Sam Houston is extremely efficient with its portal methodology.
Starting running back, Jay Ducker, won MAC Freshman of the Year in 2021 at Northern Illinois after rushing for 1,184 yards. He then transferred to Memphis and largely got lost in the shuffle. His value plummeted. But the Bearkats still saw a great back. Now, he's averaging 4.9 yards per carry and leads the team with four touchdowns.
Starting safety Isaiah Cash didn't arrive until July 29 because a Power Four school dropped him at the last second. The Bearkats knew it was going to happen and pounced hoping to add him. Now he leads team with five passes defended.
Sam Houston digs, too. The Bearkats needed an upgrade at quarterback this cycle, so they looked hard in the transfer market. That includes the junior college ranks. Barnes watched Hunter Watson play for Iowa Western Community College and thought he had juice despite only having a handful of D-II offers. Keeler watched and agreed. So, the Bearkats took a QB who would have otherwise played for Northwestern Missouri State or UT Permian Basin.
Watson is now the starting quarterback for a 4-1 FBS program. He also leads them in rushing.
It speaks to the culture-first mentality in Huntsville that players have veto player if a recruit comes on a visit and the leaders don't think he's a good fit. It doesn't happen often, but that situation did occur once last year. The Bearkats stopped recruiting the prospect.
"We kick the tires on a lot of players, and we're very careful about who we bring in," Keeler said. "We're uniquely built."
They're also uniquely cobbling together NIL money.
The Bearkats lack a large outside collective. Almost all money is generated in-house. A lot of that is being creative with stipends and awards that are allowed within NCAA rules, generating the money to pay for them via avenues like an auction for fans. Barnes spearheaded an event this summer that featured 25 in-demand items, including things like all-access passes to away games. Fans shadowed the team every step of the way during tips to Rice and Texas State; a few thousand dollars raised that can be funneled toward retention.
"We're trying to find things that doesn't necessarily cost money but brings people in and keeps them engaged," Barnes said.
Sometimes it's things outside of football that keep the players happy. Linebacker Sincere Jackson is a high-achieving student in Sam Houston's communications school and a California native. Keeler helped set an internship up for Jackson in Los Angeles with Sam Houston alumnus and big-time Hollywood producer James Lopez.
"The players know this staff cares about them more than just football players," Keeler said.
Sam Houston knows it's not built around stars, not that it hasn't had them before. Grit, remember? But the Bearkats feel like they identified the bottom 10% of their roster a year ago and replaced it with players who have an argument to be in the top 10%.
That depth allows Sam Houston to rotate six safeties, go beyond five-deep on the offensive line and stay fresh as games go along, such as in Houston last week when going up against the tempo of Texas State.
"We have a lot of guys that can be stars on any given day," Keller said. "We're not relying on one or two guys to carry us. We have a lot of guys that can step up at any position. ... That helps us keep guys healthy, and also we can be fresher as the game wears on."
The Bearkats are still a fledgling FBS program and are working toward looking like one from a fundraising perspective; Sam Houston installed a new field at Bowers Stadium this August and is amid a $60 million stadium upgrade.
For now, though, the Bearkats are more than happy to embrace the grit.
"I don't think that's ever been a problem around here," Watson said. "You work your tail off and do the best with what you have."
