Former Clemson quarterback Kelly Bryant will get a second chance to look over Arkansas this weekend, but it will be as an official guest for Mississippi State when the two teams meet in Starkville today.
Bryant (6-foot-3, 225 pounds), who is graduate transfer looking for a new place to play his final year of eligibility, took an official visit to Arkansas on Oct. 19-21 and got to see the Razorbacks’ 23-0 win over Tulsa.
He has since taken official visits to Missouri and North Carolina, where he saw both of his hosts lose.
Bryant has this weekend’s trip to Mississippi State ahead of two final treks to Auburn (Nov. 20-22) and Miami (Nov. 23-25).
Bryant has announced that he will make his decision on Dec. 4, which happens to be Arkansas coach Chad Morris’ 50th birthday.
Good sign? Who knows, but it sure is fun to speculate that particular Tuesday could be when Bryant gives the man who recruited him to Clemson a banner birthday gift.
He is finishing online courses and working out twice a day with private quarterback coach Ramon Robinson.
Arkansas has the nation’s 10th-best recruiting class for 2019, something that Bryant took notice of during his official visit to Fayetteville.
“They’ve got all the pieces here,” Bryant said. “I feel like if I was to come here I could maybe make a spark but I feel like all the pieces are around here. I’ve just got to sit down and make sure I dot all my I’s cross all my T’s. If I come here I need to make sure I’m making the most out of my opportunity.
“It means a lot that Morris was honest with me. I’ve said this that through this process I don’t want to be recruited, I want to be told the situation from the jump because I’ve been through that phase. I’ve only got one year left. Just talking to coach Morris, he’s always been the same guy, even when he was at other places. It just means a lot, that trust factor. Knowing that you can trust a coach and the coaching staff means a lot.”
Arkansas (2-8), North Carolina (1-8), Missouri (6-4), Auburn (6-4), Miami (5-5) and Mississippi State (6-4) all seemingly offer Bryant an opportunity to come in and take the reigns of their football team.
Missouri’s Drew Lock is expected to be a high pick in the 2019 draft with Fayetteville native Taylor Powell set to take over for him, while Auburn junior Jarrett Stidham could choose to declare for the draft and Nick Fitzgerald is a senior at Mississippi State.
Arkansas redshirt Ty Storey (121.7 QB rating per ESPN), Miami redshirt freshman N’Kosi Perry
(119.0), North Carolina junior Nathan Elliott (117.9) are all current starters and candidates to be their team’s starting quarterbacks although each will find challengers bidding to their place whether Bryant shows up on their campus in January or not.
The coaches at the six schools would be doing their program wrong if they did not battle for Bryant’s services.
There have been several callers to sports radio shows in Arkansas voicing their support for the Charleston native Storey, who is 123 of 216 passing for 1,423 yards with 11 touchdowns and eight interceptions so far this season.
But the former Tiger standout, a good guy who waited his time before finally getting a chance to run the team this season, is 0-7 as a starter on a team that can get better at quarterback and a lot of other places.
Bryant’s quarterback rating in 2017 was 131.7 and was at 146.9 through the first first four games before he was benched for Trevor Lawrence, a five-star recruit and the nation’s top quarterback recruit in the 2018 class.
Bryant was 16-2 as a starter at Clemson while throwing 16 touchdown passes and 10 interceptions
He played in 30 games as a Tiger while completing 311 of 470 passes (66.2 percent) for 3,338 yards and also added 973 rushing yards and 16 more scores.
The main goal in recruiting is to replace the players leaving the program and with players that are better than you have on campus.
It would be coaching malpractice not to try to land Bryant, who is well-versed in what Morris is trying to run at Arkansas.
Dudley Dawson is the recruiting editor for Hawgs Illustrated magazine.