Jaguar mentality: Favorite animal of Baylor's Keaton Thomas mirrors his own tenacity

Ed Thomas sprang out of bed in the wee hours of the morning one day when he heard a strange noise coming from the front of his house.

It was 4 a.m., and he thought someone was breaking into his house.

Instead, he found his son, Keaton, getting in an intense workout in the garage before heading to football practice and school later that morning.

“I asked him what’s going on, and he just said it’s fourth down I’ve got to make the play,” Ed said.

The phrase “slow down” does not exist in Keaton Thomas’ vocabulary.

After becoming a three-star wide receiver prospect and winning a state title in high school, he walked on at West Virginia because the Mountaineers were the only school that gave him the chance to play defense.

When he left Morgantown for junior college, he became an All-American in one season, and from the moment he stepped on campus in Waco, his infectious energy has been taking over Baylor the entire roster.

That’s what stood out to Baylor head coach Dave Aranda when he first saw Keaton play.

Earlier this season, Keaton ran full speed at a sled about 20 yards in front of him, took it to the ground, and landed right on his shoulder, spraining his AC joint in the process. Still, he hasn’t missed a game this season.

“I was like, ‘KT, man, just chill, bro,’” Aranda said. “I think that’s good when you have to say that to somebody. He exemplifies the eagerness and the want to and the fight and all those things. To have him out in front of our team that way is a fitting thing.”

That was a difficult thing to hear.

“That’s who I am,” Keaton said. “It’s hard for me, because I feel like when I’m not going hard, I’m wasting the opportunity I’ve been given. A lot of times, I can’t even tell myself to slow down, because I feel like I’m not going hard enough all the time.”

When he’s not on the football field or in the weight room, Keaton is hunting or fishing. When he’s not doing that, he’s watching Animal Planet.

His favorite animal is a jaguar.

“They’re the best hunters,” he said. “They can hunt in the water. They can jump up high. They kill birds and everything. And then on land, you can’t catch them there. They’re fast and have a good bite force and all of that.”

Keaton has been hunting blocking sleds since his days at Northeast Mississippi Community College.

Head coach Greg Davis said after the Tigers played their games on Thursdays, he would routinely see Keaton alone on the practice field two days later getting extra work in.

“He has something to prove,” Davis said. “He plays with a passion. In practice, you look out there and he’s very eager. Sometimes he can get himself in precarious situations as far as losing fundamentals, but it’s great when he’s out there making double-digit tackles on (gameday).

“It’s hard to slow down a cheetah.”

Or a jaguar.

Betting on himself

Growing up in golf-obsessed Jacksonville, Florida, Ed signed Keaton up for golf lessons before he was allowed to play football.

“I thought he was going to be the next Tiger Woods,” Ed said.

But golf was far too slow, and Keaton gave it up pretty quickly when he was allowed to start playing football in the seventh grade.

By the time he was a sophomore at Trinity Christian Academy, he was one of the top wide receivers on the roster. He finished his career with more than 600 receiving yards and six touchdowns and was a three-star receiving prospect.

“He was that utility guy, he would play wherever was needed,” Ed said. “Return kicks, return punts, out wide, in the slot, running back, wildcat quarterback. Whatever they needed him to do, he did.”

But he really wanted to be on defense. As a senior at Trinity Christian, he got his shot, finishing with 60 tackles, two sacks, four pass break-ups and seven interceptions and helping the Conquerors win a state title.

The offers — 35 of them — rolled in ... for Keaton to play wide receiver.

He turned them all down to walk on as a defensive back at West Virginia.

“To prove everybody wrong,” Keaton said.

The first semester he was in Morgantown, he was working with the scout-team safeties. But when some linebackers went down with injuries, he moved to the position he always wanted to play and the same one Ed played in the NFL.

He was the scout team MVP on three occasions that season, officially made the move in the offseason and continued to develop in the spring, but was still way down on the West Virginia depth chart.

“In anything I do, I want to be the best,” Keaton said. “One, I didn’t want to pay for school, because I knew I could compete with guys at this level. And two, I needed game reps at linebacker if I was going to be the best.”

Booneville, Mississippi, isn’t quite the center of the football world. Ed and his wife were skeptical at first, but after spending some time with Davis and seeing what NEMCC was all about, they came around.

Crucially, Keaton saw it as the perfect place to get the experience he needed.

“His mom and I believed in him,” Ed said. “You believe, and you work like you believe. If you have a want or a need, then you’ll put in the hours that nobody wants to put in. He believed in himself, but he believed in himself because he knew he had done the work to get there.”

In one season with the Tigers, Keaton finished with 107 tackles, the most in the country, with 10 for a loss, 1.5 sacks, two interceptions and two pass breakups, and was a unanimous NJCAA first-team All-American.

“He made this a business trip,” Davis said. “He was determined to get a Power Five offer. From day one, he was something special. He approached everything like a professional on and off the field.”

Again, the offers — 30 of them — flowed in. This time, the schools wanted him to be a linebacker.

Keaton felt a connection with Christian Robinson, who left Baylor to coach inside linebackers at Alabama. The pull to follow Robinson to Tuscaloosa was strong, but the chance to work with Aranda, who is coaching inside linebackers this season, was too much to pass up.

Plus, he related to the players on the Bears’ roster.

“I’ve been an underdog my whole life,” Keaton said. “So it made sense. I’m here with underdogs, guys who want it really bad, and who are working to achieve something that has been achieved before. I’m all in on that.”

Despite an injured shoulder and a club on his right hand for the last few games, he is second on the team this season with 40 tackles and has four TFLs, one sack and an interception.

“I think some of his physicality is affected by that, but he’s finding a way to do it and still be productive,” Aranda said. “For someone to do that, their care factor and their attention to detail has to be through the roof, and that’s him.”

Hard work pays off

From an early age, Keaton saw firsthand how far focus and hard work could get him.

His mom started as an educator and is now a NICU labor and delivery nurse.

Ed, after playing college football at Georgia Southern, spent three years in the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers and the Jacksonville Jaguars.

“We always talk about what we’re chasing,” Ed said. “There’s the idea of who you want to be. Then there’s the reality of who you are. There’s a gap in between the two, and what you can do to fill that gap is your effort and the extra work and deliberate work.”

Keaton bought in immediately, and Ed rarely said no.

When Keaton was in high school, they would make the six-hour trip from Jacksonville to Miami so Keaton could work out with NFL and college trainers, and then turn around and come home.

The family went to football camps in Miami and Atlanta to Keaton to face off against the best of the best when it came to high school prospects.

“My family is my rock,” Keaton said. “When nobody believed in me, they were there. They were pushing me. I couldn’t have done this without them. I send them my tape and they critique me harder than anybody else. I love it because I know they’re being honest.”

Ed and his wife come to every Baylor home game and most of the away games. The group text full of family members is very active every Saturday, and a group of them will be at the West Virginia and Baylor games.

The prevailing theme in most conversations between Ed and Keaton is gratitude.

“He knows to give it all he’s got, because all you have is today, all you have is the opportunity, and all you have is your ability to perform at your best,” Ed said. “He’s always going to work hard because he knows the only thing separating good from great is your effort and your attitude.”

Keaton’s work ethic is something that can help change the trajectory of a football program.

The six wins NEMCC had in the one season Keaton was in Booneville were its most in a season since 2016, and Baylor’s resurgence this year after a three-win season last year is clear to see.

“They have some special things going, and I think (Aranda) is making the curve back to where it needs to be,” Davis said. “It takes special kids like Keaton to get it done. The culture has to be moving in one direction, and a kid like that changes your whole team.”

Keaton will never be satisfied.

“I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs,” Keaton said. “Through it all, I learned that when nobody has you, you have to have yourself. It’s survival of the fittest. If you aren’t constantly at the top, then you’re at the bottom.”