Ty Keyes, state of Mississippi’s top-rated QB, waiting out the recruiting process
He’s the state of Mississippi’s top-rated quarterback in the Class of 2021, but will Taylorsville’s Ty Keyes ultimately stay in his home state or go somewhere else to play his college football? It seems everyone, including Keyes, will have to wait a good bit longer before knowing the answer to that question.
Keyes spoke with Sports Illustrated’s Cowbell Corner on Monday to update his recruiting process and indicated he’s not really close to figuring out what he’ll do.
“I’m going to try to wait until the end of my (upcoming) football season,” Keyes said of a personal timeline.
As a consensus four-star recruit by 247Sports, Rivals and ESPN, Keyes certainly has options. All the interest has come on the heels of three outstanding seasons at Taylorsville in which Keyes has racked up a whopping 12,019 career passing yards with 125 touchdown passes, all with a 67 percent career completion percentage. He has also rushed for 1,300 career yards and 16 scores, averaging 8.1 yards per carry.
Make no mistake about it though, Keyes’ biggest weapon is his arm. He’s passed for more than 3,700 yards in each of his three high school seasons, including a freshman year where he threw for 4,562 yards (285.1 yards-per-game average) and 45 scores. Keyes is a winner, too, having led the Tartars to two state titles in the last three years (2017 and 2019).
Keyes’ abilities have obviously drawn the interest of multiple schools. He has several reported scholarship offers, including the likes of Auburn, Mississippi State and Ole Miss out of the Southeastern Conference, as well as other schools including Oregon, Louisiana, Nebraska and Tulane. It’s a pair of those outside-the-SEC institutions that Keyes said have been coming at him the most as of late, though some of the SEC teams, including Mississippi State, are staying in touch.
“My recruitment is going great right now,” Keyes said. “I’m hearing from Lafayette and Oregon. Mississippi State’s recruiting coaches, they text me all the time. Auburn, too, and Nebraska. I hear from Nebraska and Tulane at times. That’s mostly it.
“Lately, I’d say Oregon and Lafayette have been on me the hardest.”
The Oregon interest isn’t much of a surprise. Keyes said he started to build a relationship with current Oregon offensive coordinator and former MSU head coach Joe Moorhead when Moorhead was with the Bulldogs. It appears that relationship has continued.
But is it enough to make Oregon a favorite? That doesn’t appear to be the case right now. In fact, Keyes says no one at all is standing out just yet as he awaits the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to pass so he can gather more information.
“I don’t have a favorite,” Keyes said. “I was really trying to take all my visits first to make a decision.”
So for Keyes, the process continues. As he waits to take his visits, he simply says he’ll keep on grinding.
“I still get to go to the field and work out,” Keyes said of how he’s staying in shape.
As for where exactly all that work will lead Keyes in the future, only time will tell.
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