Ole Miss Football: Kelly Will Lead SEC in 3 Major Categories

Chad Kelly was the only quarterback in the SEC to average 300+ passing yards last season and he’s back with his sights set on Ole Miss football single season records.

Chad Kelly had the greatest statistical season in terms of yardage of any SEC player NOT to win a Heisman last year. He’s come back for more and he’ll be adding to his collection of great plays and stats all season. He’ll end up representing Ole Miss football well and leading the SEC in 3 major categories.

Passing Yards

Kelly led the SEC in passing yards last season while completing 65% of his passes. Those passes went for over 4,000 yards and he didn’t even get to do much stat padding in the early portion of the schedule. Remember, we weren’t sure if Kelly, Buchanan or Kincade was going to be the Ole Miss football leader last season to kick things off. All 3 received snaps early in the year in games that Kelly could have piled up even better statistics. There won’t be any snap splitting this year, though, until the Ole Miss football teams is well ahead and Kelly has his passing yards for the day.

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Total Touchdowns

Ole Miss football scored like never before in 2015, and a lot of that was the quarterback play. Chad Kelly threw for 31 touchdowns against 13 interceptions. He’ll likely cut down on those interceptions this year while adding on a handful of touchdowns. Where I expect to see his overall number of touchdowns see a nice bump, though, is on the ground. Kelly added 10 last year on the ground, but I could see that number easily jumping up to 15+. While I don’t think he’ll surpass Tebow’s crazy 2007 total of 55 touchdowns, they’ll be in the same neighborhood. With a lack of proven quarterbacks in the SEC, the touchdown king will be playing for Ole Miss football.

Total Yardage

I’ve already mentioned Kelly’s 4,000+ passing yards, which should lead the SEC. We’ve discussed the fact that he should see a bump in rushing touchdowns, but that also means he’ll likely add to his 500+ rushing yards from last season. The offensive line is a concern for the Rebels entering 2016, but that could likely lead to more scrambling opportunities for Kelly. While Freeze would likely rather Kelly safely get rid of the ball, Kelly proved himself adept at finding running lanes last season and will likely look for the yardage instead. With that mindset, Kelly will lead the SEC in total yardage — and it probably won’t be close.

But John! He lost Laquon Treadwell! He can’t POSSIBLY put up those numbers again. Sigh.

must read: SEC Sophomores That Will Break Out in 2016

You can’t have it both way, folks. The people that claim Freeze bought his recruits, yet can’t replace Treadwell confuse me. You can’t have it both ways. People believe Freeze is cheating because his recruiting has been crazy good — especially at wide receiver.

The Rebels just signed 3 elite prospects in their 2016 class in A.J. Brown, D.K. Metcalf and Tre Nixon. All were ranked in the top 36 receivers and all were 4 star recruits. That trio will likely see two redshirts, as the receiver position is log-jammed with guys like Damore’ea Stringfellow, Quincy Adeboyejo, Van Jefferson, Damarkus Lodge and others. There’s also that Evan Engram guy. Ole Miss football should be fine offensively.

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