Clemson transfer Xavier Kelly gets final shot with Arkansas

Four months ago, Xavier Kelly was back on a familiar stage.

This time it was set in New Orleans at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, and this time his team’s opponent was the top-ranked LSU Tigers, led by their Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Joe Burrow.

As a member of the Clemson Tigers the past few years, appearing in the national championship game became more than just a goal — it was the expectation. For Kelly, it was his third national title game and fourth consecutive College Football Playoff trip, he’d seen since arriving at Clemson in 2016. Two championship rings were won along the way. Now a potential third awaited.

Kelly had never seen the field in the two previous title games. This night against LSU was no different. The 6-4, 305-pound defensive tackle spectated from the sidelines while Burrow and Co. delivered a 42-25 takedown of Clemson in front of a pro-LSU crowd.

“That was a humbling experience,” Kelly said. “Those guys, they deserved it. They had a really great team.”

For most of his Clemson career, this is how it was for Kelly — fading into the background as a relatively unknown reserve, sparsely playing here and there, while getting to be along for championship rides that most college football players never get to take part in.

Kelly, a native of Wichita, Kan., is now bound for Arkansas as a graduate transfer, with one year of eligibility remaining — one year to finally make a name for himself. This is his chance to start anew and be the difference-maker on the field he’s always wanted to be.

“I was just frustrated with my playing time,” Kelly said of his decision to leave Clemson. “Ultimately my goal, ever since a young kid, was to go to the NFL. I feel like it wasn’t in my best interest to stay at Clemson to reach those goals. It’s nothing personal against Clemson. It’s just something that I felt like I needed to put more film out there.”

On Jan. 18, five days after the national championship loss to LSU, Kelly announced on Twitter that he was entering the transfer portal, a decision he says now he’d been considering in the back of his mind throughout the second half of last season.

Once again, he was like a free agent, with the power to decide where to play next.

“When I first entered the portal, my phone was blowing up,” said Kelly, who was the No. 1 high school recruit in Kansas and a four-star prospect. “I felt like I was in high school again, being recruited.”

It was Arkansas who caught his attention early. Kelly said Razorbacks defensive line coach Derrick LeBlanc was one of the first coaches to reach out to him after he entered the portal.

LeBlanc, Kelly said, ended up being a key reason why he chose the Razorbacks.

“Just sitting down with him, watching film, you can just tell that he’s very knowledgeable about the game,” Kelly said. “You can tell he knows what he’s doing, and that’s the type of guy I want to be coached by.”

Kelly’s new head coach, Sam Pittman, left a considerable impression on him, too. Kelly — who’s one of five grad transfers Pittman acquired this offseason — took his official visit to Fayetteville on Jan. 31-Feb. 2., then he announced in a tweet on the night of Feb. 17 that he was committing to Arkansas.

“Just how he was interacting with me and my family, [Pittman] just seemed like a real genuine guy, and I could tell he was a guy that was hungry for me,” Kelly said. “It’s one thing to want somebody on your team, but it’s another thing to be hungry for someone. He really showed interest, really showed that he wanted [me] bad.”

In Kelly, Pittman and LeBlanc are getting far more than what his numbers from his time at Clemson will lead one to believe.

Kelly, a former all-state basketball player in high school, possesses the needed physical tools and athleticism. But for much of his Clemson career, he had to sit behind one of the nation’s best defensive lines in Clelin Ferrell, Dexter Lawrence, Christian Wilkins and Austin Bryant — three of whom were first-round picks in last year’s NFL Draft and the other, Bryant, was a fourth-round selection.

With those players out of the mix in 2019, and with a scheme change, Kelly was still passed over on the depth chart by younger players this past season.

“He’s going to be a dominant player at Arkansas,” said former Clemson teammate K’Von Wallace, a safety who was a fourth-round pick by the Philadelphia Eagles in last month’s draft. “His athleticism, the way he can jump, his speed, his tenacity to just go out there and compete — he was just an athlete, freakish athlete. If he can get his brains where his athletic, God-given ability is, the sky’s the limit.”

Kelly redshirted his first season at Clemson in 2016, a result of a gnarly moped accident during preseason camp in August that could have killed him and left him battered with various injuries and on crutches for months.

He was stopped at a red light on his moped one night when he was hit from behind by a driver who wasn’t paying attention.

“It was really a blessing because it could have been a lot worse,” said Kelly, who wasn’t wearing a helmet. “I look in my mirrors and I notice these bright lights coming fast, so I’m thinking they’re obviously going to stop … and it just kept going faster and faster, and I noticed that they weren’t going to stop, so I tried to get out the way but they hit me and it was too late.

“They hit me from the back, and the moped goes flipping. There’s glass everywhere. I literally fall backwards and hit my head on the ground. Originally I didn’t feel anything because I was so scared and I was so shocked and all the adrenaline was just rushing through my body.

“Yeah, I thought I was going to die.”

By the time the following season arrived, Kelly was a reserve player. Over the next three years, he didn’t get much playing time, and he even changed positions.

After beginning his career as a defensive end, Kelly made the switch to tackle heading into the 2018 season.

He played in 28 games and saw 256 snaps from 2017-19, tallying 26 total tackles, 2 1/2 sacks, 1 forced fumble and 1 fumble recovery. Last season, Kelly posted 9 tackles, a half sack, 1 fumble recovery and 2 pass breakups in 10 games. He didn’t play in either of Clemson’s CFP games against Ohio State and LSU.

“We talked about [transferring] before the championship games, and then we said we’ll get deeper into it after the game, and we decided that transferring would be the best decision,” Kelly’s father, Will, said. “He was getting discouraged and kind of getting depressed on the dreams of going to the NFL, and I was like, ‘Hey, you need to do something different. You just need to get an opportunity, a fresh start.’ So we looked for what team would be the best decision for that.”

At Arkansas, Kelly may very well strengthen his NFL chances so long as he puts forth a solid season of tape.

He’s going from playing for one notable defensive mind in Clemson’s Brent Venables to another in Arkansas defensive coordinator Barry Odom, the ex-Missouri head coach.

With former Arkansas defensive tackles McTelvin Agim and T.J. Smith having departed, and on a defensive unit that was statistically the worst in the SEC against the run last season, Kelly is a valuable asset up front for Odom.

He lacks the extensive in-game reps and starting experience, but Kelly brings along with him experience of a different kind and that can’t be measured — experience in a winning culture, the type that Pittman hopes to someday build in Fayetteville.

“I believe that we can turn the program around together,” Kelly said. “I’ve seen it. I’ve seen what it takes. So I can definitely try to implement that as best way as possible when I get to Arkansas.”