By Nick Wagoner
Senior Writer

The first thing you might notice about Keith Null is the hair. Then you might notice the chiseled features or the gray-specked stubble that wraps around his face.

When you move past the looks and you go on to the resume you might see the small college career with big time statistics and you might go further down the list and investigate his future plans to play quarterback and become a pastor.

If you dig deep enough you might even see in his work history a short stint sacking groceries at an H-E-B store in Texas.

And when you see Null step onto the field to play quarterback for the Rams, it might all seem too familiar. It might be downright eerie.

The comparisons to Kurt Warner are obvious and it’s no coincidence that Null uses Warner as a template for all he hopes to become as he enters the next phase of his career.

“He’s definitely a guy I look up to,” Null said. “A man of God just like I am, just really out there with his spiritual life and gives God all the glory for everything he’s done. I extremely look up to that.”

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, it’s important to remember that Null would have to accomplish some pretty historical things to even belong in the same breath as Warner.

Warner has been the league’s Most Valuable Player twice, won a Super Bowl MVP, a Super Bowl and an additional NFC Championship.

Just last weekend, the Rams made Null, of tiny West Texas A&M, the 196th pick in the NFL Draft. While Null has yet to get the opportunity to reach the Cinderella-level story of Warner, his journey to this weekend’s minicamp in St. Louis is a pretty good tale in its own right.

Growing up in Austin, Texas, Null’s football development was a part of your prototypical “Friday Night Lights” blueprint. Like most kids in Texas, he loved the Cowboys and the trio of Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin.

Null played his high school ball at Lampasas High where he was a solid, if unspectacular signal caller. In his senior season, Null was first team all district for a school that played one step below (class 4A) the highest level of high school football in the state.

For some reason unbeknownst to him, Null got almost no attention from major colleges and got nary a Division I scholarship offer. At 6’4, 185 pounds, Null had the height but not much more in the way of numbers to land at a big school.

When Division II West Texas A&M came calling, Null quickly accepted.

“Somehow I slipped through the cracks,” Null said. “And West Texas A&M found me and it was a perfect fit for me and I was glad to go there.”

The reasons for a player going relatively unnoticed are hard to decipher. Some simply don’t post the numbers, some mature later than others and some live in such faraway places that it’s nearly impossible to be discovered.

Null entered the college ranks around the same time as Texas Tech quarterback Graham Harrell, who had a similar resume to Null at the time.

How does one get noticed and the other doesn’t?

“I kept asking that as we started talking,” general manager Billy Devaney said. “Why is this guy at West Texas A&M and there wasn’t any reason. He was overlooked coming out of high school and went to a place where they were going to throw the ball around a lot. I don’t know why he winds up at West Texas and Graham Harrell winds up at Texas Tech. I don’t know how those kinds of things happen.”

Regardless of reason, Null made the best of the opportunity he was afforded. He redshirted in 2004 as the coaching staff asked him to add weight to his frame.

In 2005 and 2006, Null came off the bench and played in eight games with mixed results. Playing in the spread offense that had become so popular in the college game, Null took some time getting adjusted. He’d played under center and in the shotgun in high school but was now in an offense where gunslinging was not only preferred but required.

As a junior, Null threw for 4,134 yards with 41 touchdowns and 14 interceptions, including a 498-yard, six-touchdown outburst against Washburn.

After settling in as a junior, Null exploded for one of the most prolific passing seasons at any collegiate level as a senior last year. He finished the season with 5,097 yards and 48 touchdowns with 15 interceptions.

In his final collegiate game, Null and his team were on the losing end of a 93-68 decision in which Null threw for 595 yards and seven touchdowns.

“We had two potent offenses and that day we were both just rocking and nothing could go wrong for either of us,” Null said. “They just kept going and we just kept going and nobody could stop anybody. It really was (like an arena league game). Nothing against our defensive players but offensively we did everything we could do and hopefully the defense will catch on.”

Null’s record setting performances were enough to help him finish with just about every major passing record in school and Lone Star Conference history and score an invite to the Cactus Bowl, the Division II All Star game in Kingsville, Texas.

After a pro day at his school drew just six pro scouts, Null eagerly awaited the chance to play in front of a bigger group of scouts. And he made the most of his opportunity against the nation’s best Division II players,
 
Null threw for 240 yards and three touchdowns in the game and it was there that Rams scout Steve Kazor began to take notice.

“The knock on me is I didn’t go against the best competition in division II,” Null said. “So I went to the Cactus Bowl and played in the Division II All Star game, the best linebackers, corners and safeties so that was good for me to be able to do well in that situation.”

The other thing that has become difficult to evaluate when looking at college quarterbacks is how well they will be able to translate their skills to the NFL after playing in a wide open passing attack like the one Null had at West Texas A&M.

That evaluation process takes into account how much a player has played under center, what type of footwork he has, how strong and accurate his arm is and all of the intangibles that go with playing perhaps the most important position on the field.

By the time the Rams opted to select a quarterback in the sixth round of the draft, all signs pointed to Null fitting the mold of the type of developmental signal caller who could one day play at the NFL level.

“Everybody tags names to them but the quarterback in any system has to do certain things and we saw those in this guy and that’s why we decided to take him,” Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo said.

The news that the Rams had selected him in the draft came as a surprise to the supremely humble and genuine Null. But by the end of the week, reality had set in and Null had arrived here in St. Louis for this weekend’s minicamp.

While Spagnuolo is doing his best to quickly integrate the rookies into the practices, he also doesn’t want to force them into handling too much. Considering the volume of plays and things he has to learn, Null will be brought along more slowly than the rest of the rookies so as not to make his head spin like Linda Blair in the Exorcist.

During Friday’s first practice, Null stood by patiently and watched the rest of the quarterbacks take the majority of the repetitions before he stayed after practice to get some extra work in with quarterbacks coach Dick Curl.

“He said he is not going to throw me in the fire,” Null said. “He is going to make sure to take care of me and I am going to sit back and watch practice and learn from those guys that have been doing it. They are going to give me some time to learn all the plays, learn to call them and do all those things before they just toss me in there.”

Although it might have seemed like it, Warner’s success didn’t happen overnight either. He played in the Arena League and NFL Europe before he ever got anything resembling a legitimate NFL chance.

Warner even detoured to the Hy-Vee grocery store, a job Null can relate to but not too much.

“I sacked groceries,” Null said. “It was only for two weeks in high school and I was like ‘I am not doing this anymore.’”

Only time will tell if Null ever even gets the opportunity to play at this level let alone reach the lofty heights of Warner. The road will be long and the journey will be difficult.

But if nothing else, the Warner experience can serve as a fond reminder to Rams fans and Null that anything is possible.