Jack Kelly has been making plays for Jay Hill since 2022 when they were both at Weber State. They are now in their fourth season together and the second at BYU, where Hill is defensive coordinator and Kelly his loyal lieutenant.
The 6-foot-2, 242-pound linebacker runs with the speed of a safety and hits with the power of a nose tackle. Kelly is the cog in the chaos that Hill’s genius tries to create on each and every play.
“I’d say the IQ that he has,” Kelly told BYUtv’s “GameDay” pregame show. “He knows the offense better than maybe their coordinator does. When we are watching film on Wednesday or Thursday, he will already know what the play is going to be before it happens.
“He’ll see and think what the quarterback will see and think and then he’ll put us in a position that might throw (his) read off post snap and then it will give them a different look than what they originally thought.”
Getting a quarterback to question himself is Hill’s defensive key to opening the door for a day of disappointment. Taking away his ground game is priority No. 1.
“One of our biggest goals for this year was to stop the run,” Kelly said. “Last year we didn’t do a good enough job in some of the games, especially in the ones we lost. If we stop the run, we can get into third and long. That’s where the real fun comes out with the pass rushing and the picks from our corners and safeties.”
Entering Saturday’s game at East Carolina (5:30 p.m. MDT, ESPN2) BYU leads the nation in run defense (7 ypg), total defense (106 ypg) and scoring defense (1.5 ppg). Kelly is the first to admit that he doesn’t do it alone and he’s also quick to point out the powerful influence of his tag-team partner — Isaiah Glasker.
“He’s tall, athletic and strong,” Kelly said of the Bingham High grad. “He has everything you need to be an inside linebacker. He’s a freak athlete.”
Glasker, at 6-foot-5 and 240 pounds, is also a magnet for attention, which is good for Kelly.
“I think it goes hand in hand because when someone’s focusing on him, it allows me to be a little more free. To focus on me allows him to be a little more free, along with all the other guys we have on defense,” Kelly said. “We have so many ballers that have made tons of plays already, so it just helps us all coordinate with each other.”
Despite BYU outscoring its first two opponents 96-3 and holding them to a combined 14 yards rushing, the Cougars remain off the national radar, not unlike last year when they were picked 13th in the Big 12 and finished No. 13 in the AP Top 25.
”It’s motivation at the end of the day, but we don’t really buy into that much,” Kelly said. “We know what kind of team we are, we know what we’re capable of and we just really take it day by day and moment by moment to be the best versions of ourselves.”
Through 15 games at BYU, Kelly has 12.5 tackles for loss, including six sacks with an interception and four forced fumbles. He also returned a blocked field goal 54 yards for his first collegiate touchdown against Portland State.
Hill is certainly the brain behind the brawn, but Kelly is no dummy. The Kearns High product decided to hold off on his NFL pursuits for one more season of tutelage and camaraderie. Kelly entered his final year having added eight pounds of muscle to his body while increasing his speed.
“I need to get better and there were opportunities that I missed last year, things I could do better,” he said. “But a huge thing was the guys on the team. You can’t recreate the bond and the love that we have for each other. College football is a special place, especially playing in front of Cougar Nation. This atmosphere can’t be beat.”
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com.