Is Ole Miss Interested in Junior College Quarterback Chad Kelly?

Chad Kelly, the nephew of former Buffalo Bills starting quarterback and multiple Super Bowl loser Jim Kelly, is the top junior college quarterback in the country. He is considered a heavy lean to sign with the Rebels - despite not yet having an Ole Miss offer - per 247Sports, who lists him as a 6'1" 210 pound dual threat prospect. This season at East Mississippi Community College, Kelly has thrown for 3,472 yards, 42 scores, and eight interceptions and rushed for 413 yards and four scores. Under his leadership, the powerhouse EMCC Lions are 11-0 on the year and likely to win yet another junior college national championship.

With Ole Miss losing Bo Wallace to graduation and unsure as to who between redshirt freshmen Ryan Buchanan and Devante Kincade should start next season, it seems a logical choice for Ole Miss to, again, pull a highly prolific EMCC quarterback out of Scooba and into Oxford. But Chad Kelly, like any junior college star, is a junior college prospect for a reason.

Unlike former Lions-turned-Rebels Randall Mackey (grades) or Bo Wallace (depth chart issues), Chad Kelly's in Scooba because he was R-U-N-N-O-F-T from Clemson. During spring drills of this year, Kelly was kicked off of the Tigers squad for having one too many heated arguments with his coaches, including those over play calling. He also got into some off-the-field issues which were irregular enough - e.g., stuff worse than just partying too hard and having poor grades - to count as conduct "detrimental to [Clemson's] program."

Per an excellent GQ article on the budding football factory that is EMCC - an article in which the details of Kelly's argument with Dabo Swinney are expounded upon - Kelly claims that he has "humbled [himself] since" enrolling at EMCC, and that he now does not "take anything for granted" as a result of his dismissal. Even if that were true, the Ole Miss coaching staff would seriously have to be very calculating if they were to recruit him further.

If his skillset outweighs any possible setbacks or potential issues, and if we can be sure that neither the aforementioned Kincade or Buchanan are viable SEC starters next year, then extending a scholarship offer to Chad Kelly is a no brainer. Otherwise, he might not be worth the headache.