Here’s how transfer portal quarterback joined Fresno State. ‘We found the right guy.’

There were 60 or so quarterbacks in the NCAA transfer portal, coming in all shapes and sizes and with different strengths and weaknesses, some with big names and recruiting stars that followed them to campus, where ever that might have been.

But Fresno State and coach Jeff Tedford landed on Mikey Keene, who played the past two seasons at Central Florida and at his size, 5-foot-11, could be a perfect fit in an offense that has averaged 30 or more points for five seasons in a row, the longest active streak in the Mountain West Conference.

“He’s one of those guys that comes from a very good high school program — Chandler is where Brett Hundley played, Bryce Perkins is in the NFL now, the quarterback that they have right now is the No. 1 player in the country in 2024,” said Brandon Huffman, national recruiting editor for 247Sports.

“Chandler is a high-level program and I think Keene won two state championships as a starter. He’s just the unconventional build of a quarterback.

“But if you look at UCF, in a three quarterback stretch, they recruited Dillon Gabriel, McKenzie Milton and Mikey Keene, and none of those guys pass the eyeball test for a quarterback. But Dillon Gabriel is really good, went to the portal and had a bunch of suitors. Well, Mikey Keene is kind of the guy who ran him out of town.”

Keene also is one of 16 players to sign national letters of intent with Fresno State on Wednesday, on the early signing day, and he will be on campus in the spring to jump into a quarterback competition with three years of eligibility remaining.

How did the Bulldogs get there? Very quickly, as it turned out, despite a whirlwind of activity around the program as Fresno State won the Mountain West championship and the LA Bowl to finish 10-4.

“There was a lot going on between championship game, recruiting weekend we had 17 guys in, and then leaving the next day for the bowl game; high school recruiting, junior college recruiting, portal recruiting and evaluating,” Tedford said. “It’s not just recruiting, it’s evaluation and cultivating relationships. It’s been pretty hectic for the past month or … five months, I should say.”

Tedford recruited Keene basically on the phone and via Zoom — the quarterback will not make an official visit to campus until a January recruiting window opens.

Picking a quarterback in a busy transfer portal

Tedford said the Bulldogs did not get as deep into the process with any quarterback as they did with Keene, who had slipped fairly quietly into the portal with higher-profile quarterbacks from Power Five programs.

“We saw what we saw on tape, and then went from there,” Tedford said. “We weren’t going to just take anybody. It had to be the right fit. But we feel like we found the right guy for us to make our quarterback room better and compete for the job.”

Tedford built his success on quarterback development including in his time at Fresno State with transfers Marcus McMaryion from Oregon State and Haener from Washington. Each won 21 games as a starter and a Mountain West championship. But those are not the only sets of eyes a quarterback, or any recruit, has to get by.

“Everybody watches them,” Tedford said. “We all have opinions on them. We make cut-up tapes and go through, ‘Are they a fit for us? What type of offense do they play in?’ It’s all that stuff.”

In Keene the Bulldogs found accuracy, mobility in the pocket and a presence. He has some confidence, one staffer said.

Keene played in 11 games as a freshman at Central Florida, completing 63.6% of his passes with 17 touchdowns and six interceptions. He lost the starting job in a fall camp competition this season, but was there when starter John Rhys Plumlee was injured in the second quarter of a game against Cincinnati and hit 15 of 21 passes for 176 yards in leading UCF past the Bearcats. Keene the following week hit 22 of 28 passes for 219 yards with three touchdowns in a victory at Memphis.

He played in four games, preserving a redshirt season, and hit 72.3% of his passes (60 of 83) for 647 yards with six touchdown passes and only one interception and had high marks where required.

Third downs? He was 13 of 19 (68.4%) for 133 yards with two touchdowns and one interception.

Third and long? 10 of 13 (76.9%) for 119 yards with seven first-down throws and two that went for touchdowns.

Red zone? 8 of 9 (88.9%) for 40 yards with three touchdowns.

When blitzed? 20 of 27 (74.1%) for 186 yards and four touchdowns.

The deep ball? 8 of 14 (57.1%) for 217 yards and four TDs.

Keene also was 1-0 as a starter this season, and 9-3 in his career.

Strong competition in Fresno State QB room

“Everyday we’d have a list and I don’t know how many kids were in the portal, 2,500 or whatever,” Tedford said. “But we’d get a portal list every day of the Pac-12, the Mountain West Conference and the Big Sky, just as a starting point, to see if anybody right here is someone who would be attractive to us, or attracted to us, either way. We start with that, and then there are others that pop up nationally that we’ll look at and see.

“But we start with that. Every day, check the portal, any new player that went in, they go on there and if they’re at certain positions we’re looking for, then we’ll pull all those guys off and do the research on them and see if they played, what their numbers are. But that’s just a starting point. Then it’s all the research. Why are they leaving? How many years do they have to play. What’s their academic cycle, which is a whole other thing with the portal. It’s not just as easy as saying, ‘I want to transfer.’”

Keene stood out, and the Bulldogs reached out.

The transfer quarterback will join a room that at the moment includes third-year sophomore Logan Fife, redshirt freshman Jaylen Henderson and freshman Joshua Wood and will include Jayden Mandal from Buchanan High, who like Keene will join the program in the spring.

The Bulldogs signed 16 players including Mandal, safety Brandon Ramirez from San Joaquin Memorial High and offensive tackle Hayden Pulis from Hanford and Fresno City College, and will continue to mine the portal to address needs at defensive end and the wideout positions where they lose senior David Perales and their top three receivers in Jalen Moreno-Cropper, Nikko Remigio and Zane Pope.

“We watched quite a few of the quarterbacks and there was a lot of interest in us,” Tedford said. “We were able to find a guy that we thought was a great fit for us. We had great conversations, and we always want to make our quarterback room better, even though we have good players here now.

“But you’re always going to compete, so we were able to find a really good fit for our system and what we do. We’re just always trying to get better. We’re excited about Jayden Mandal coming in, as well. The great thing about it is Keene is coming in the spring and so is Mandal, so they’re all going to be on the same playing field as far as the competition is concerned. I’m excited to see them all play.”

Fresno State recruiting class

OFFENSE

QB Jayden Mandal ( 6-0, 221) Buchanan High

QB Mikey Keene ( 5-11, 180) UCF

WR Tim Grear Jr. ( 6-1, 175) Ventura College

RB Charles Greer (5-10, 190) Concord De La Salle

RB Devon Rivers (5-7, 170) Brentwood Heritage

TE Brock Lium (6-5, 215) Highland Citrus Valley

TE Jake Tarwater (6-4, 230) College of the Sequoias

TE Richie Anderson (6-4, 230) Tualatin, Ore.

OL Hayden Pulis (6-6, 285) Fresno City College

OL Caleb Barajas (6-5, 275) Ventura College

DEFENSE

DL Dupre Mendoza (6-4, 330) Mt. San Antonio College)

DL Mordecai Hines (6-5, 265) Highland

DL Isiah Chala (6-4, 255) San Francisco Archbishop Riordan

LB RL Miller (6-3, 190) San Francisco Sacred Heart

DB Brandon Ramirez (6-0, 205) San Joaquin Memorial

DB Justin Johnson (6-1, 200) Inglewood

This story was originally published December 22, 2022 at 9:30 AM.