#1 Keenan Garber — Senior Keenan Garber’s (1) first full season as a cornerback was fairly successful, highlighted by this runback of an interception. But his true highlight play probably was the 2-point defensive conversion runback of the blocked KU extra point, which proved to be especially huge in that game. What will his super senior year hold as an encore? | Photo by Peter G. Aiken/Getty Images

In which BracketCat counts down the final day before the 2024 kickoff with a profile of Kansas State cornerback Keenan Garber.

NOTE: Kansas State has elected to advance players’ classification even though the 2020 season did not affect eligibility. Those who wish to take advantage of this extra year will be listed as a (“super”) senior again after their original eligibility would have been exhausted.

Goal No. 1: COMMITMENT. To common goals and to being successful.

#1 Keenan Garber

Redshirt Super Senior | 6-0 | 188 lbs. | Lawrence, Kansas

Position: Cornerback
Previous College: None
Projection: Starter
Status: On Scholarship

Keenan Jae Garber (b. July 22, 2000) was a promising wide receiver who converted to cornerback late in the 2022 season and was almost immediately thrown into the fire.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in social sciences from Kansas State in May 2023, while he currently is working on his minor in psychology.

Garber played in one game in 2019 — seeing action against his “hometown university,” Kansas — as he preserved his redshirt. He then saw playing time in six games in 2020, including three of the final four contests of the pandemic-shortened season.

That season, Garber had receptions in two games, including a 9-yard catch against Kansas.

He also had a 4-yard rush on a jet sweep against Oklahoma State and finished as a second-team Academic All-Big 12 performer.

Garber saw time in 12 games in 2021, setting career high in catches (4) and yards (72).

He tallied a career-long reception of 54 yards against Oklahoma and also hauled in two catches for 13 yards at Kansas, plus he had yet another jet sweep rush at Oklahoma State.

Garber played in all 14 games during the 2022 Big 12 Championship season, beginning the year as a reserve wide receiver before seeing significant action as a cornerback at the end of the year while also contributing on special teams throughout the entire season.

He was pressed into action at cornerback in the Big 12 Championship game against TCU due to other injured players, playing 21 defensive snaps and carding his first career tackle.

“Here’s a guy who played wide receiver, and toward the end of the latter part of the year decided it wasn’t working out for him and he wanted to try something different,” said assistant head coach and cornerbacks coach Van Malone.

“He spent a few weeks on scout team and with me in individual meetings trying to learn the position, and the next thing you know, he’s in the (Big 12) championship game. It’s a really cool story of a guy who got an opportunity and made the most of it.”

Malone expanded upon this point when discussing Garber’s growth earlier this fall camp:

Keenan has really good lateral movement ability and really good speed. He’s very competitive. I saw that before the (2022) Big 12 title game, and that’s actually what gave me the confidence to throw a guy who we did not even have a jersey number for (out onto the field) and he knew none of the calls and just played man to man. I was confident. At that moment, it was just a matter of him understanding the scheme and the techniques and places to use those techniques. He has some skills you can’t coach and that’s what he’s continuing to exhibit.

With a full offseason under his belt, Garber was expected to perform even better at the position during his senior year. He entered the season as the top reserve at the position.

Well, Garber saw action in all 13 games in 2023, including starts in five contests, as he totaled 22 tackles, one tackle for loss, one interception and five total passes defended.

He logged a career-high five tackles at Texas Tech, while he produced a career-best two passes defended against both TCU and Baylor. (Hilariously, one of his pass breakups against Baylor came on a fake field-goal attempt.)

Garber also recorded his first career interception against Baylor, one he returned 45 yards for a touchdown as he tied for third in the Big 12 in interception-return touchdowns.

He later returned a blocked extra point 91 yards at Kansas (and “waved the wheat”) — the Wildcats’ first defensive extra point since 2011 when Nigel Malone returned one vs. Arkansas in the 2012 Cotton Bowl — en route to Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Week honors.

It was the longest defensive extra point via a blocked kick in school history — 1 yard longer than Terence Newman’s 90-yard return against USC in 2002 — while it also was the longest overall defensive extra point since a 98-yard interception return by Chris Canty against Oklahoma in 1994. The play proved crucial in changing the margin of a fairly close game.

Garber also had three tackles at Missouri and two apiece against Southeast Missouri State, Oklahoma State, TCU, Houston and Baylor. His tackle for loss was at Oklahoma State, a game in which he recorded his first career pass breakup. He enters 2024 as a full starter.

Head coach Chris Klieman also had lots of words of praise for Garber earlier this summer:

Keenan Garber, he’s started, but it wasn’t that long ago that the kid played at cornerback after playing at wide receiver for 16 weeks, and he’s playing in a Big 12 Championship.

You see all the work that he did in 2023, and he’s a very confident corner. I’m glad he came back for another year. He’s a really confident guy going into his last year.

A three-year letter-winner for Free State High School in Lawrence under coach Bob Lisher, Garber helped the Firebirds to earn a 10-1 record and league championship each season.

He was named an ESPN 300 recruit, the 23rd-best athlete in the nation and the third-best player in the state of Kansas in the Class of 2019 by ESPN, while Rivals and 247Sports each ranked him as the fourth-best player in the state.

Garber was named a first-team all-state performer by The Topeka Capital-Journal, The Wichita Eagle and Kansas Football Coaches Association in 2018, and also was named to the USA TODAY Sports/American Family Insurance All-USA Kansas team as a defensive back.

USA Today described Garber as a “Swiss Army knife player — play him anywhere on offense, just get him the ball” and accurately indicated he would play early due to his athleticism.

He earned honorable mention accolades from The Wichita Eagle in 2017 and was a 2018 Otis Taylor Award finalist as the most outstanding wide receiver in the Kansas City area.

Garber also was named a 2018 first-team All-Simone performer as one of the top prep players in the Kansas City area after he carded 814 receiving yards and 17 touchdowns as a senior, while also recording four interceptions, including two he returned for touchdowns.

He was selected to play in the 2019 Kansas Shrine Bowl and was a high school teammate of former Kansas State fullback Jax Dineen and his younger brother, current safety Jet Dineen.

Garber selected K-State over offers from Illinois State, Indiana State, Kansas, Missouri State, North Dakota, North Dakota State, Northern Iowa, South Dakota, South Dakota State, Southern Illinois, Tulane, Western Illinois and Wyoming, plus interest from Wisconsin.

His primary recruiter was former Snyder 2.0-era offensive coordinator Andre Coleman.

Ironically, much of K-State’s current coaching staff came to Manhattan from North Dakota State and Wyoming, two schools Garber also was considering out of high school.