We know the name and now we know his game a little better.Ole Miss quarterback Chad Kelly stepped up in a big way last Saturday in the Rebels' massive upset of No. 2-ranked Alabama, completing 18 of 34 passes for 340 yards with three touchdown passes (to three different receivers) and no interceptions. Kelly also ran eight times for 34 yards and a score in the 43-37 victory.Kelly is known in NFL circles for being the nephew of former Buffalo Bills great and Hall of Famer Jim Kelly, but the junior-college transfer also has some notoriety he's trying to move past. Kelly was dismissed from Clemson last April for "conduct detrimental to the team," and after transferring to East Mississippi Community College where he put up video-game numbers and led the team to a NJCAA national title, Kelly was forced to accept a plea agreement (50 hours of community service) to a non-criminal charge of disorderly conduct after his December 2014 arrest for an incident in a Buffalo nightclub.Since then, Kelly has stayed out of trouble and beat two other contenders for the Rebels' starting job, and with the win over Bama-a school he strongly considered attending-Kelly has locked himself into a job and put himself on the draft radar.
The redshirt junior still has a year of eligibility, doesn't have prototypical NFL size at 6-foot-1 and remains an unpolished product. But that doesn't mean he might not consider leaving early if he has continued success and Ole Miss' season keeps ascending.Through three games, Kelly has completed 47 of 73 passes (64.4 percent) for 898 yards with nine TDs and one interception. A few of those plays against the Crimson Tide might fall under the category of "fortunate," but Kelly was dialing up some big throws-two soul-crushing TD passes in the fourth quarter to stem the Tide-and led his team to 43 points against a Kirby Smart-coached defense that features future NFL starters.Eight representatives from seven NFL teams (the San Francisco 49ers sent two scouts to the game) were watched Kelly and several other NFL prospects at Bryant-Denny Stadium, and one talent evaluator who was there-he was seeing Kelly live for the first time-came away impressed."He can shoot it," the scout said. "I liked that he seemed to have a knack for the big moment, and he responded a few times with big throws right when [Alabama] was making some runs. That's good. That shows me something."I haven't done extensive work on him, and we'll circle back around if we need to, but that's one [game] you kind of dog-ear the page on, if you know what I mean."
We do, and it's clear that there is some clarity needed on the potential 2016 NFL draft class at quarterback. But like many other college quarterbacks, Kelly is being used in a spread offense that seems to irk some blue-blooded NFL coaches and scouts trying to make a projection of how a quarterback such as Kelly might adapt to more of a pro-style scheme.Kelly is not on the front of NFL evaluators' brains because he's a junior and has one big performance on a grand stage to his r¨¦sum¨¦. But you can be sure they'll come back around if or when Kelly makes a decision on his professional future.