The Bearkats are two steps from doing so in the FCS playoffs — just don’t mention that second step to Keeler. Sam Houston (8-0) hosts James Madison (7-0) at 1:30 p.m. today in the FCS semifinals, with the Bearkats playing nationally on ABC for the first time since 1994.

“You can’t get distracted with that nonsense,” Keeler said of glancing past an upcoming opponent. “To us, there are no (playoff) brackets. You (reporters) have brackets, fans have brackets, your parents have brackets. We don’t have brackets.

“I will not allow a bracket in our facility … our secretaries don’t (have brackets).”

When Keeler — who won an FCS championship at alma mater Delaware in 2003 — arrived in Huntsville in January 2014, he adored the idea that Sam Houston was a couple of hundred miles from five of the nation’s 13 most populous cities.

“I don’t know if there is better (high school) football in the country within four hours of Sam Houston,” Keeler said. “We can get some great players here.”

Based on that, he began focusing on skill players and speed to bring in weapons for his first offensive coordinator at Sam Houston, Phil Longo, who since has served in the same role at Mississippi and North Carolina.

“We were up-tempo and air-raidy,” Keeler recalled. “We led the country three years in a row in scoring (under Longo).”

But two bad things happened for the Bearkats on the way to all those points: A 65-7 loss at James Madison in the 2016 playoffs, and a 55-13 loss at North Dakota State in the 2017 playoffs.

Keeler described the Bearkats as “totally embarrassed” by the outcomes, especially since the 2016 squad finished 12-1 and the 2017 bunch was 12-2.

“My original thought when I got here was to be up-tempo with the heat and the speed we can (recruit) here,” Keeler said. “Obviously it was very successful; we won a lot of ball games. But the goal wasn’t to win ballgames, the goal was to win national championships.”

Keeler began emphasizing recruiting not only skill players out of Houston, Dallas, Forth Worth, Austin and San Antonio, along with East Texas in particular, but the state’s plentiful big men on both sides of the ball.

“I changed everything, based on the fact that I didn’t think we could win a national championship that way,” Keeler said of an up-tempo approach. “Looking back at Delaware, we ran the football, used play action and played great defense. We were a really physical team, and that’s how we rebuilt ourselves here.”

The Bearkats last weekend dispatched powerhouse North Dakota State, which has won eight of the past nine national titles, 24-20 at Bowers Stadium on the Sam Houston campus.

“They’re a great football team,” James Madison coach Curt Cignetti said of the Bearkats. “They’ve got it in all three phases. … They shut down North Dakota State completely and stopped their running game on defense. This is not anything like the team that came here in 2016 — everybody needs to understand that.

“They’ve retooled the program. They’re a very physical defense that gets after you, and offensively they create a lot of problems. This is a run-and-hit outfit, and they’re really good.”

A few years ago Keeler approached Sam Houston athletic director Bobby Williams, a Rice receiver 40 years ago, about a handful of upgrades to get the program more national-title ready. Sam Houston is seeking its first football national championship since 1964, when it shared the NAIA crown.

The Bearkats have not had a fieldhouse this season while it undergoes a $15 million renovation — the players have washed their own practice uniforms — and Keeler has enjoyed what he called “full summer funding,” having scholarship players on campus during the summer.

Keeler also tabbed a deep-pocketed Sam Houston alum to fund a full-time strength coach for a year, and Keeler went in with two other alums to fund a team nutritionist for two years.

“I wanted to show this is my program and I’m willing to invest in my program,” Keeler said. “We took a real hard look in the mirror at what we need to do to win a national championship.”

If the Bearkats defeat James Madison, they’ll play either Keeler’s old school, Delaware, or South Dakota State in the national title game in Frisco on May 16, finishing the postseason without having to leave the state.

brent.zwerneman@chron.com

Twitter: @brentzwerneman