Announcement

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2010 Grad And Former Jag To Play At Mount Union

Posted by Dave Rea on May 14 2010 at 05:00PM PDT in 2018 Season

Former Jaguar Kelton Keller has decided to attend Mount Union College in the fall after his graduation from Buckeye this month. Kelton played 5 years with the Jags from 1999 through 2003. He also started all 4 years of his high school career with the Bucks. He was a second team All Ohio selection this past season as a senior. He also played in the Ohio North-South Classic on April 22 at the Horseshoe in Columbus. His north squad was coached by Highland Head Coach Tom Lombardo.

Below is the article that Brad Bournival wrote in the Gazette.

ALLIANCE — It wasn’t the 10 national championships that necessarily pulled at Kelton Keller. Nor was it the 18 undefeated seasons or 20 OhioAthleticCon­ference titles that caught the Buckeye senior’s fancy.
 
When it came down to it, Keller wanted to be a farm boy, just like he’s been all his life. That’s why the 6-foot-4, 260-pounder chose Mount Union over Eastern Michigan to continue his academic and ath­letic career.

“(Eastern Michigan) is in a city and I’m a farm guy,” Keller said. “Alliance is just like here. There’s a grocery store down­town and the rest is just farm­land. It has a nice homey feeling. “I’m very family-oriented.
Distance was a big factor. I want to be able to come home and help on the farm if they needed me.”

So, with the help of coaches Billy Burke and Bob Jenne as well as the support of his family, Keller weeded out interest from schools like Akron, Bowling Green, Ashland and Toledo.

That the two-way lineman is going to a school that has six championships this decade and has established itself as a winner isn’t a bad secondary prize.


The Purple Raiders have won national titles in 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2008, finishing second to Wisconsin-Whitewa­ter a year ago.


“It’s got a very good winning tradition,” Keller said. “I’m extremely excited. I like playing football, but it’s not fun if you’re always losing. MountUnion has a great campus and great aca­demics. Football is just icing on the cake.”

The Purple Raiders are getting a pretty good football player as
well. As an offensive tackle, he helped the Bucks average 223.5 yards on the ground and 287.8 total offense per game.

The four-year starter was namedsecond-team All-Ohio in 2009 and logged 54 tackles — eight for loss — with six sacks from his defensive end position. During his stint with Buckeye, the team went 27-14, reaching the playoffs for the first time since 2005 last year.

Keller, who will major in busi­ness with a minor in criminal justice, is going to a school that has gone 139-5 over the last decade.

“I’m just going to work my butt off to get that starting posi­tion,” said Keller, who is being eyed as a defensive lineman by Mount Union. “I’d love to be able to play varsity right away. I’ve never played jayvee and I really don’t want to. But I’ll go
wherever they need me.”

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