Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy and UNLV defensive lineman Ryan Keeler were close friends, having come up together through the youth football ranks in Illinois. When Keeler died at age 20 on Feb. 20 from a heart arrhythmia, McCarthy was devastated.
“I just broke down and started crying because [Keeler] was someone that worked so hard as he did,” McCarthy told Connor Eargood of The Michigan Daily. “And he was such a phenomenal human being. There’s not a speck of evil in this kid’s heart, and the rest of his life was taken from him like that.”
On Saturday, when the Wolverines played the Rebels in Ann Arbor, McCarthy honored Keeler by drawing a No. 47 on his hand to represent Keeler’s uniform number with UNLV. And then something amazing happened.
