HOOVER — Kelly Bryant quickly found a new home and not even a possible NCAA postseason ban was going to change his mind.
After backing up future NFL first-round draft pick Deshaun Watson for two seasons, Bryant took over as the starting quarterback at national powerhouse Clemson. Bryant led the Tigers to an ACC Championship, 12 wins and a berth in the College Football Playoff in his first season as the Tigers starter.
After four weeks into the 2018 season, Bryant though would lose his job to Trevor Lawrence. Bryant entered his name into the NCAA transfer portal and was looking for a new collegiate home.
Missouri was the first program to come calling and it didn’t take long for Bryant to fall in love with the Tigers of Columbia, Missouri.
“Right when I put myself in the portal and coaches could contact me, Missouri was the first school that contacted me,” Bryant said. “It was a crazy process. When I went out there on a visit, I just pretty much fell in love with everything that they had to offer.”
“When Kelly stepped on campus for his official visit, I saw interaction between him and our team in the locker room,” Missouri head coach Barry Odum said. “It was a natural fit. He’s a very selfless person, low, low ego. And one of the best competitors I have ever been around.”
Not only did Missouri offer Bryant a chance to play but the team also offered him a chance to develop as a signal caller, and become a possible pro quarterback. Last year’s starter Drew Lock was drafted in the second round by the Denver Broncos earlier this year.
“For me, within that last year, the biggest thing for me was that I have one year to get it right, and I can’t have any slip-ups,” Bryant said. “They knew it, and they were selling me on how Drew (Lock) had the success he had within the year when he put himself in the position to be where he wanted to be, and at the end of the year, he was a second-round draft pick.
“I was like, okay, that’s a box check for me – how they can grow me into the quarterback that I want to be, being able to play at the next level,” Bryant added.
The man who is trying to help Bryant get to that next level is Missouri offensive coordinator Derek Dooley — a former BCS national championship winning assistant at LSU and former head coach at Louisiana Tech.
“Well, the pitch for me coming to Missouri, he saw what I did at Clemson,” Bryant said of Dooley. “He loved the things he saw from a passing standpoint and also what I can do with my legs, because I can make plays with my legs and I am able to extend plays.”
Bryant also is responding to Dooley’s philosophy of putting him in the most comfortable position.
“He is not going to call anything where he is comfortable and the quarterback is not comfortable,” Bryant said. “He is going to cater to you, and just knowing that, I have that in my pocket where I can go into a meeting and say “I like this” or “I don’t like this, so let’s do this”, and he is going to cater to you.
“That’s just been one of the biggest things that I like about playing for him so far,” Bryant added.
Bryant though may receive the coaching he desires to become a pro-ready quarterback but he might have to do it for a program currently facing a postseason ban for NCAA violations. Missouri is appealing the decision.
“It was a weird day,” Bryant said of the day he found out about the bowl ban. “I was in the facility, and all of the sudden, everybody was getting a text message that we were having a team meeting that wasn’t planned. For me, I thought, “did someone get fired and they didn’t tell me about it?” Hearing Coach Odom deliver the message, he just laid it out there for us. He was open, he said, “if anybody wants to leave, no one is going to look at you any differently. You have the opportunity to stay here as well.”
Despite having the opportunity to transfer out and play for a team not facing a bowl ban, Bryant remained even more convinced that Missouri was the right choice.
“He (Coach Odum) said they were going to try to appeal it, and that it is going to be a process,” Bryant said. “Just hearing that, I was like, first and foremost, I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to go through that recruiting process over again, and I already built the relationship in that month or two, with those guys, I was already establishing myself and just working every day. This is where I want to be. I made the decision, so I am not going to turn back on it now.”