McCombs: Chad Kelly is a blockhead
Some people are slow to come around. And there are some people that just don’t get it.
It looked like Chad Kelly was the former. But now it’s clear, he’s the latter.
Chad Kelly is a blockhead.
The former Clemson quarterback, who is now (he hopes) a prized Ole Miss recruit, found himself in the news again on Sunday night for all the wrong reasons.
The Buffalo News reports that Kelly was arrested early Sunday morning after an incident at a downtown Buffalo, N.Y., bar. And it doesn’t look good.
(Just for the record, Kelly, 20, is not of legal drinking age.)
After Kelly’s friend, who had been thrown out earlier in the evening, tried to re-enter the bar, he and Kelly were evicted by bouncers. Kelly allegedly punched one bouncer in the face in the scuffle.
“I’m going to go to my car and get my AK-47 and spray this place,” Kelly allegedly told the bouncers, according to the newspaper.
Forget the legal ramifications of that statement. It was just plain stupid.
As a result of that threat, Buffalo police stopped the truck in which Kelly was a passenger, forcibly removing him from the vehicle. According to the newspaper, Kelly kicked the officers, took a swing at them and resisted arrest.
The charges against Kelly, all misdemeanors, include third-degree assault, second-degree harassment, second-degree menacing, resisting arrest, fourth-degree criminal mischief, second-degree obstructing governmental administration and third-degree criminal trespass.
Kelly was arraigned and released without bail.
Until last year, Kelly’s presence in the headlines had always been a good thing. The New York high school phenom was the state’s 2-A player of the year as a senior. As a junior, he was the first player in state history to run for 1,000 yards and pass for 2,000 in the same season.
Former Clemson offensive coordinator Chad Morris recruited Kelly to run his offense at Clemson.
Kelly tore his ACL in the 2013 spring game, but returned to the field in just five months. He saw action in five games, completing 10 of 17 passes for 58 yards and rushing 16 times for 117 yards, a 23.5 yard average. He showed a flash of what he was capable of when he tucked the ball and sprinted 38 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter of a blowout win over Virginia.
A much better runner and more suited than Cole Stoudt to run Morris’ offense, Kelly likely would have had his number called this season after DeShaun Watson went down, but Dabo Swinney didn’t have that option.
Last spring, Kelly and Swinney got into an argument over on the sideline of the Tigers’ spring game. Two days later, the coach had campus police remove Kelly from the football facility after he caused a disturbance.
And that was it, he was done at Clemson. There’s little doubt now that Swinney made the right call.
But college football is a world of second chances. Ask Lane Kiffin. Bobby Petrino. Cam Newton. Zach Mettenberger. Stephen Garcia. DeAndre McDaniel. Jameis Winston. The list goes on and on.
Kelly went to East Mississippi Community College this season and led the school to a national title. As a result, he signed with the University of Mississippi and head coach Hugh Freeze. A team on the rise. It looked like he made good.
But there’s no word, yet, on what the fallout from Kelly’s night on the town might be.
Kelly is immensely talented. Maybe even the most talented quarterback to come from his own family, and that includes Uncle Jim, a Pro Football Hall of Famer.
But a year and a half after his departure from Clemson, Kelly still needs to grow up. And get smart. If he doesn’t, and soon, he’ll have no future in football.
Because talent without brains, more often than not, usually results in wasted talent.
This story was originally published December 22, 2014 at 8:50 AM with the headline "McCombs: Chad Kelly is a blockhead."