Collin Keoshian, Eight-Man Football Star, Now a BYU Cougar

Collin Keoshian’s YouTube video hasn’t gone viral. But it did find its way to the right people.

Keoshian (pronounced Key-oh-shun) was a star athlete playing eight-man football at tiny Santa Clarita Christian School in Santa Clarita, California.

Playing in such anonymity, Collin and the school’s video specialist decided to put together a highlight reel that Collin planned to send out to colleges to see if he could drum up any interest in his talents.

Before doing so, he decided to post the video online so that Collin’s extended family could view it.

Not long thereafter, Keoshian received a call out of the blue from BYU assistant football coach Barry Lamb. Seems a BYU football fan had seen Keoshian’s film and notified the BYU coaching staff. They were impressed to say the least.

Coach Lamb’s call took Collin by total surprise.

“I was shocked and excited,” says Keoshian. “I couldn’t believe it.”

An even bigger shock was what the BYU coaches told him about what they saw in him on film.

“They just said that they thought I could definitely go to the NFL, and that going to BYU would help me prepare to get there. BYU has sent a lot of linebackers to the NFL.”

Unusual praise from the typically conservative BYU staff, and pretty heady stuff for a kid that played on a team where the entire squad numbered just 29 players.

SCC head coach Garrick Moss started the football program at the private Christian school 13 years ago when 14 students came out for the team that first season.

Eight-man football is played on an 80-yard field. In fact, the Cardinals call the field at nearby Canyon High School, the alma mater of current Cougar JJ Di Luigi, their home. The field is modified for SCC home games and are played on Saturdays so as not to interfere with Canyon games on Friday nights.

With Collin as its star player, the usually underdog Cardinals have won the CIF Division II eight-man championship in Southern California each of the last two years, besting 80 other schools in the area. Both times they defeated rival and perennial national eight-man powerhouse Faith Baptist in the championship game to take home the title.

“It’s been amazing,” Keosahian explains. “Our school has been the underdog for years. We’re a pretty small school and have ended up gaining a lot of notoriety.”

Collin is a two-time All-Santa Cruz Valley player and a two time-Horizon League MVP.  This past season ended with him being the first eight-man player ever named to play in the Los Angeles Daily News All-Star game, along with another future Cougar Zac Stout.

On the field, Collin intimidated eight-man teams and was coveted by the large local powerhouse programs like Hart and Canyon. In fact, parents at the big schools approached Keoshian’s father Craig several times with the hope of luring away his son to play with theirs.

But Collin says he had attended SCC since he was an elementary-age kid. “It's a Christian school and that was important to me. I wanted to stay loyal to the school and be the first player to go Division I from SCC,” explains Keoshian, who has become a role model and celebrity on campus.

“I knew if I played my hardest I would be found. If God wanted me to play college football, He would allow it to happen.”

“We’re a K-12 school and the little kids here look up to him. He’s the type that will sit down with the kids, he’s not too cool to take time for others,” says Moss. “There are a lot of good strong Christian kids that have gone to school here, but there aren’t any of them that I would put above Collin as a person. He’s unique, he truly puts others first.”

Keoshian says, “It’s pretty cool to see the the kids in the morning when I come to school, all lined up waiving and ready to see me. I remember when I was in their shoes here, looking up to the players.”

What BYU coaches saw when they first viewed Collin’s video was a 6′2″, 225-pound monster than runs a 4.5 40-yard dash and leaps over human beings in a single bound, literally. In multiple highlights, Keoshian leaps over the top of would-be tacklers with amazing ease.

“He’ll be exciting to watch,” says Coach Moss. “We have a photo here at the school that shows him hurdling over a six-foot tall player. The kid’s form tackle was perfect, but he had his arms full of nothing.

“He’s such a gifted athlete; he could play a number of different positions. But he’s set on being a linebacker, He loves hitting and linebacker is the position he thinks gives him the best chance of playing at the next level.”

When Keoshian and his father arrived to scout out BYU, it was love at first sight. Both of them knew that Provo was the place for Collin to play his college football. “I love that it's a campus with morals,” says Collin, who is a devout Christian.

“He loved the coaches. They couldn’t say enough about the BYU coaching staff,” Moss says.

Possessing such eye-popping athleticism, many have expected Keoshian to play outside linebacker in BYU’s 3-4 defense where he can make plays in space. But Collin, who now checks in at 240 pounds, says that the BYU coaches are talking to him about playing inside linebacker, a spot that is thin on the current Cougar team.

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard. They’ve told me that the middle linebacker spot it open, so that’s good news,” says Keoshian. “Hopefully I will see the field, but I’m not expecting to start as a freshman.”

It’s a big adjustment for a high school player to make the jump to Division I college football, but it’s an even bigger jump for someone that has been playing eight-man football in high school.

“With eight-man, it's just three less players and a smaller field,” says Collin. “I’ve played 11-man as well. There’s just a lot more open field tackling. The biggest difference (at the college football level) will be better athletes.”

“It’s football,” Moss explains. “Offensively (going from eight-man to 11-man) it’s a big jump. Defensively though, it’s not as big of a jump. If your a smart kid and know football you’ll be fine. Collin has as good of instincts as I have ever seen. (College football) is going to be a big adjustment, but he’s up for the task.”

Colin will arrive in Provo in early August. For those of you who have not seen his above-mentioned video, here it is…