Caleb Kelly Again Battled Back From Injury to be Minted OU Captain
Caleb Kelly is the senior statesman for the Oklahoma Sooners.
Arriving to Norman as a highly touted 5-star recruit in the 2016 recruiting class, Kelly has seen it all throughout his OU career.
Coaching changes at both the head coach level and with the defensive staff, season ending injuries, a position change, a position change back, a once in a generation pandemic, Kelly has experienced every bit of it.
But when Kelly takes the field on Saturday ahead of his sixth season in Norman, he’ll put on a jersey with a “C” emblazoned across it, as he was voted a team captain for the 2021 season.
“When the team voted, I was excited to see it,” Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley said during his press conference on Tuesday. “you think about that guy’s journey, high-profile recruit, one of the mostly highly recruited guys we’ve signed here. Comes in, has a large degree of success on that Sugar Bowl team. One of our best playmakers on defense. Up to this point, he’s had either four or five position coaches now. He’s played in two defensive schemes. Had some of the highest of highs, he’s had some of the lowest of lows.”
Riley said he took extra care to point out to the team just how unique Kelly’s journey at Oklahoma, and decision to stay at Oklahoma, is in today’s college football that is dominated by the transfer portal and player movement.
“I told the team the other day when we announced it,” said Riley, “when you think about him coming into this year, of all the guys that maybe could have said, ‘well maybe I want to take a look somewhere. I’m a West Coast kid, I’ve had a lot of positives here, but a lot of things just haven’t gone my way, maybe I go transfer, maybe I go do something else. I’ve had these two knee injuries, maybe I don’t play football anymore.’
“For that guy to stay here and want to be a part of this, I just think spoke volumes to how much he cares about this place, this program. How much it means to him. How much he wants to go chase a championship with this team and this group of guys. And he’s an Oklahoma guy. He’s a great example for all young players out there. He’s a great example.”
As a result of his pair of knee injuries which kept him sidelined for a majority of the past two seasons, defensive coordinator Alex Grinch said he hasn’t even really gotten to see that much of what Kelly can actually do on the football field. But Grinch said Kelly’s character in the face of adversity stands out above the physical abilities that he’s seen Kelly flash in practice.
“So much comes to mind with Caleb,” Grinch said on Tuesday. “Honestly, in our time here, as much time as we’ve spent with Caleb, we haven’t watched Caleb play a lot of football unfortunately.
“You think about his story through the adversities that he’s had, and obviously there’s been a lot of high spots as well and playing on some of the greatest stages in college football in his career, and oh by the way, he’s a better person than he is as a player.”
In the midst of all of his setbacks in Norman, Kelly said his support group has remained strong and helped him keep working to get back out onto the field.
“I mean, my family is everything to me,” Kelly said in a Zoom press conference on Wednesday. “I wear my last name with pride.
“My family has my back. My little brother’s always saying something outlandish, like the days I got hurt, he’d tell me, ‘It’s OK bro, you’ll come back and start right away. I’m not worried about it,’ things like that to where he has this like upmost belief in me. My mom just always being there for me, always making sure she could be there for the surgeries, always making sure she could have my back,” said Kelly. “Now she’s got a lot of games to finally prepare for instead of flights for surgeries. So, it’s just exciting to kind of represent my family and kind of give them love. And of course, my girlfriend helped me out a lot, too. So I just have so much support back home and I love them all to death.”
Now, for the first time since 2018, Kelly has an entire season to look forward to of taking the field alongside his Sooner family.
“It’s an honor to stand next to him,” fellow defensive captain Pat Fields said on Wednesday. “Caleb is like the epitome of whatever the program wants to have. He was a five-star dude, came in and played as a freshman. We all know his story.
“The moments of adversity he faced and how he handled them speaks volumes about him. He could have transferred anywhere in the country, but he stuck it out through two ACL surgeries. Came back and was in a deep room and made the switch. He’s just done everything and anything he can to help the team. I think you see just a lot of great traits with him like selflessness, hard work, grit, things like that. It really sets a good trajectory for the entire team. Sets a good model for all of us to model after.”
Kelly’s character has been felt far and wide throughout the program.
Sophomore cornerback D.J. Graham said that he’s been so impressed by Kelly’s character that he nominated Kelly to be considered for defensive captain.
“I wasn't surprised at that and I think he deserved it,” Graham said on Wednesday. “He's an enduring person and he'll bounce back. I was on the field when he tore his ACL last year. For him to come back, I think even better, really since I've seen him play, is impressive. I was so happy for him and I could tell he was happy the way he was smiling.
“I think he felt like he should've been team captain and it was well deserved.”
Finally healthy again, Kelly said he’s ready to get back on the field and preform, proving that he’s more than just healthy, and that he’s ready to contribute to a defense with massive expectations.
“It’s weird,” Kelly said, “because you go from the top, like, ‘Oh, we’re expecting you to make plays for the team,’ or ‘How are you going to do this week?’ to ‘Oh, how is everybody else going to do?’ Then they’ll ask you ‘Oh, how’s your knee doing? How’s your knee doing?’ Over and over again. You just hear it all the time, but honestly it’s what’s expected.
“My coaches tell us all the time that the world doesn’t care about your feelings. It’s ‘What have you done for me lately?’ That’s how humans are, and it is what it is. So I’ve gone through it, but you just have to find a way to keep on focus on yourself and keep getting better each and every day. Then, all of a sudden, you’re looking back and you’re like ‘Wow, I’ve been through two injuries. We’ve got a game on Saturday. I’m so blessed’.”
As the Sooners take the field on Saturday against the Tulane Green Wave, Kelly will be operating in a somewhat familiar role.
After playing outside linebacker under the previous defensive staff, Grinch said that they’ve been looking at Kelly as a rush linebacker in an effort to ensure that the best 22 players see the field as much as possible.
“We’ve always gotta look at (position changes), we constantly look at those things,” Grinch said. “Tre Norwood at this point last year was a corner, then flipping him, playing that safety nickel spot, one, it helps his career and helped our defense. There’s other examples, moving David Ugwoegbu from a (rush linebacker) to an inside linebacker spot. Think about Ronnie Perkins who was a rush and we moved him to an end, that helped his career and helped our success, as well.
“I think there are reps for him there – game reps, quality reps – that we feel confident that he’ll have on Saturdays. Just watching him there, it’s one of those things where you ask him one day and we can always move you back. I think he really took to it… I think he has a chance to be a quality member of the defense. It’s something he hasn’t had the opportunity to do during our time here. I’m excited for him.”
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