NORMAN, Okla. — No player in the history of college football has faced the kind of dilemma that Oklahoma linebacker Caleb Kelly faces this week.
Does Kelly play on Saturday against top-ranked LSU in the Peach Bowl? Or does he sit out the College Football Playoff semifinal and, win or lose, return in 2020 for his senior year?
“It’s tricky,” Kelly said. “It’s confusing.”
It’s a quandary.
MORE: LSU-Oklahoma odds, prediction, pick
“There’s ongoing discussions right now,” Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley said. “There’s obviously a lot of different ways to look at that. This scenario with him is a little unique right now.”
Kelly, a senior from Fresno, Calif., is coming back from a knee injury he suffered in spring practice on April 4. The NCAA's new four-game redshirt rule puts Kelly in a serious decision-making mode: If he plays Saturday, it would be his fourth game of the year, meaning he can return for his senior year in 2020 — if the Peach Bowl is his final game of the season, that is.
Oklahoma is a 14-point underdog, but the Sooners have every intention of winning the game. If Kelly plays and Oklahoma wins, then he’ll have to decide, again, whether to give up a full senior season by playing in the national championship game on Jan. 13 against the winner of Ohio State-Clemson in the Fiesta Bowl. Or, he could sit out the most important game of his life and return for one final season.
The Sooners may need the 6-3, 225-pound Kelly vs. LSU to have a chance to play for a national title — especially with starting safety Delarrin Turner-Yell (injury) and defensive lineman Ronnie Perkins (suspension) out. Kelly, a five-star recruit in the 2016 class, had three largely productive seasons before getting injured in the spring. He has been very good in his three games back this season, and was on the field in crunch time of all three contests, including the final sequence against Baylor in the Big 12 championship game.
Kelly hasn’t been made available for interviews since the Sooners beat TCU back on Nov. 23, but he acknowledged after that game that he faced some impossible choices. It wasn’t even known back then if OU was in the Playoff, but he still fielded hypothetical questions about a possible five-game conundrum.
“Hmm, I don’t know. I can’t tell you,” Kelly said. “I go week by week. Missing a national championship. … I don’t know. I’ve been here four years and been one game away the last two. That’s definitely something I would love to play in. But also, one game for the rest of my career? A real hard decision.”
Kelly was medically cleared for contact shortly after midseason. He has been practicing since early November, but Riley expressed a distinct difference between being able to practice and being able to play in a game. Kelly nearly made his return a week earlier, when starter DaShaun White was called for a targeting penalty in the Nov. 16 game at Baylor. But the call was overturned, and White was allowed to stay in the game.
If Kelly had played in the Sooners’ epic comeback in Waco, his mind right now might be a lot clearer about how to approach Saturday’s showdown in Atlanta.
MORE: OU defense's redemptive performance finally has Sooners looking like title contenders
One thing is sure: Kelly’s determination to get back on the field has been nothing short of remarkable. Seven months and one week after tearing his ACL, he was back on the field for the Sooner linebacker corps.
“He came in and flew around for us,” said middle linebacker and captain Kenneth Murray. “A guy that’s obviously a pivotal piece for us on defense, given everything he’s been through in this program. He was able to come in and communicate and make the checks with me. He’s been big for us and he’s going to continue to be big for us. He’s a guy that’s my brother and one of my best friends. I’m so happy to have him back.”
“I was excited to get him out there,” said defensive coordinator Alex Grinch. “I think that helps us. I think he’s playing fast. You see some physicalness in practice. That’s obviously going to translate to the game. And he did good when he was in there. No. 1, you don’t notice the issues. No. 2, we talked about that, the more guys we rotate, the better off we’ll be. So I’m excited to have him out there. And too, a player the other players respect.”
During the injury, Kelly expanded his role with OU’s student media team, attending news conferences as a member of the press, holding cameras and microphones, asking questions and learning about all facets of TV and video production. But he also never left the practice field or the film room. Younger players have taken to calling him “Coach Kelly,” as he has been in their ear about everything from practice habits to film study to gameday performances.
“The return of Caleb Kelly, it’s been good for me personally,” said White, who stepped into Kelly’s weakside linebacker role after his injury. “Me and Caleb have pushed the heck out of each other since, you know, Grinch moved into this place. I know leaving off from the spring, we were really going at it there, and as soon as he got back, it was like, we’re right back to where we were. We’re gonna go at it. We’re gonna be competitive. It’s been really good.
“Still Coach Kelly, but he’s got the pads on now.”
MORE: SN's Playoff semifinal picks
Kelly said “staying positive (was) hard” during his grueling rehab regimen.
“My biggest thing of course was leaning on God, my faith and just knowing he’ll be consistent through it all,” Kelly said. “We’re promised that good things are going to happen if you believe, but we’re also promised that trials will happen. I’ve been through a shoulder. I’m a senior. I’ve been through everything. This was just an opportunity for me to handle it like an adult, handle it like a pro, make an example out of myself for the young guys, and just show it can’t faze me. I put my identity in the Lord.”
And when he finally got the call to run on the field against the Horned Frogs? How did he process it all mentally and emotionally? What was he thinking about?
“All that work,” he said. “It was a lot of work. It was a lot of double days. Shoot, I still do extra workouts every week even though I knew I was playing. It was like, I don’t want to change it because it’s still not 100 percent, I guess. So until I don’t have to wear a brace, I don’t have to be cautious, it was just, continue to work.”
Riley said the possibility of an NCAA appeal does exist even if Kelly plays in five games, but it seems unlikely. Medical redshirts are granted when an athlete’s injury is season-ending, and medical redshirt candidates must play in no more than 30 percent of a team’s games. If OU wins on Saturday and Kelly plays in five games, that’ll be 33 percent. Such hardship cases occasionally turn out positive, but favors from the NCAA are not something anyone wants to depend on.
“It’s in the back of our mind,” Riley said. “It’s questions that we’ve asked. But we’re at least going forward with the assumption right now if he were to play in two more ballgames that this would be the end of his career.”
The final decision rests with Kelly. But the coaching staff and Kelly’s family also are part of the discussion.
“It involves all of us,” Riley said last week. “You can look at that so many different ways and there’s different options with it. So we’ll settle on the one that’s best for him and best for our team.
“But hopefully we got a couple games to play with and it becomes a factor.”