Keytaon Thompson already has his undergrad degree, from Mississippi State, and a master’s from UVA. If he’s thinking Ph.D., his dissertation topic is obvious: a survey of offensive football.
“This is my sixth year. I think this will be my fifth offense, my fifth offensive system,” Thompson said.
He played under Dan Mullen as a freshman at Mississippi State, then when Mullen left for Florida, he was replaced by Joe Moorhead.
Moorhead then ended up getting replaced by Mike Leach, who brought the Air Raid to Starkville.
“I think the Air Raid had, like, two running plays in the entire playbook, so that was crazy,” Thompson, a four-star prep quarterback recruit, who had his moments at State, including his performance in the 2017 Taxslayer Bowl, in which Thompson, then a true freshman, outdueled Heisman Trophy winner and future NFL MVP Lamar Jackson while leading the Bulldogs to a 31-27 upset win.
Thompson, in the bowl game, was 11-for-20 passing for 127 yards, and ran for 147 yards and three TDs.
That performance pegged KT as the quarterback of the future at Mississippi State, but he decided to transfer out after the second coaching change in his three years there to compete for the QB1 job at Virginia in 2020.
That got him into Offense #4, under Robert Anae, who has his own twist on the Air Raid.
Thompson suffered a torn labrum in training camp and had to bow out of the QB1 battle with Brennan Armstrong, but Anae found a way to get Thompson on the field in 2020, using him as a wildcat QB and lining him up at wideout, with Thompson getting a total of 214 snaps.
Last year saw Thompson on the field much more, getting 554 snaps at wideout, running back and as a wildcat QB, and his production – 1,237 yards from scrimmage on 117 touches – was off the charts.
Offense #5 is the Tony Elliott-Des Kitchings pro-style offense that will see Thompson used mainly at wideout.
“Last year was pretty unique with me playing all the different positions and motioning and switching formations and things like that. So that was pretty unique. Now we have, you know, more of a pro-style NFL style offense, so, oh man, you know, pretty different,” Thompson said.
One way to look at having to learn yet another scheme is, man, again? Another way to look at it is, Thompson has learned just about everything you could about how offensive football is supposed to work, not just in terms of the number of offenses he’s had to learn, but also because he has played a variety of positions.
“I feel like, you know, just coming from a quarterback background, it’s not that difficult for me to, I mean, I’ve learned I’ve learned so many offenses, it’s kind of a norm at this point,” Thompson said.
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Chris Graham
