Don't waste your time on me. Reports are now coming out that Kelly Bryant intends to remain at Mizzou despite the NCAA handing out a one year playoff/bowl ban for the program. Weird, considering Kelly Bryant only has one year of eligibility left.
I have no choice but to feel sorry for Kelly Bryant. He spent two years behind Deshaun Watson and was supposed to be the next coming for Clemson, and kind of disappointed. I say "kind of" because credit to Clemson, the year that he was the starter they still made it to the playoffs which is no easy feat. Did they lose to Syracus? Yeah maybe, but it was Alabama that year that really sucked the life out of Kelly Bryant. In their playoff matchup #1 Clemson lost 24-6 to #4 Alabama, and boy did that defense look inspired. Kelly had 124 passing yards, 0 touchdowns, and 2 picks. But he's a dual quarterback, right? Wrong. Bryant had 19 rushes for 19 yards.
Still, first year starter, number one team in the country, and a punched playoff ticket is pretty impressive. Bryant had nearly 3,000 passing yards, 24 total touchdowns, 665 rushing yards and 8 interceptions. Not too shabby. Enter Trevor Lawrence. After that Bama game Clemson was forced to look to it's young true freshman the following year to see what he was made of. Lawrence immediately blew everyone away blah blah blah, Clemson went on to blah blah blah and good. Now we're all caught up.
After I'm sure was a long look in the mirror, Kelly Bryant decided to transfer. According to 247 Sports Kelly visited UNC and Arkansas but there was speculation of Auburn and obviously Missouri were in the mix. The pitch from Missouri probably included their young talent in TE Albert Okweugbunam who totaled 17 touchdowns in his first two seasons and Larry Rountree III who had a breakout season posting over 1200 yards and 11 touchdowns. Kelly Bryant could be their final offensive piece of the puzzle.
Then theres the Drew Lock angle. Missouri's latest quarterback is getting looks to be taken in the early to mid first round. Lock's freshman year flat out stunk. In his first season he played twelve games threw 4 touchdowns and 8 interceptions with 1300 yards. Missouri did a fine job shaping him into a serious NFL potential starter. In 2017 he improved to 44 touchdowns, 13 picks and nearly 4000 yards. Now I think a lot of the credit there belongs to current Head Coach of UCF, Josh Heupel, who was the OC at the time. Heupel proved his worth by taking the UCF vacancy after Scott Frost and kept UCF in the top five Points Per Game even after losing his starting QB to injury. But fact still remains, Drew Lock improved tremendously under Barry Odom.
With all of that being said, I just don't understand why Kelly Bryant is staying at Missouri. Did Missouri withhold the investigation from him? Accusations came in 2016. Did he know and went anyway? Is this a revenge thing? Does Kelly Bryant want to prove to NFL scouts that he can hang with SEC defenses? Mizzou's athletic director Jim Sterk already confirmed that they are going forward with appealing the NCCA's ruling. Will the ban be lifted for Kelly's one year while they're in the midst of the appeal process? I just don't know. According to twitter lawyers there are rules in place for seniors to transfer and play elsewhere if their school is being sanctioned for their final year. Whats holding him back?
Needless to say, Kelly Bryant, I'm missing you at Clemson.
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