Mississippi State football: How explosive would Kelly Bryant be in Starkville?

Kelly Bryant was efficient at Clemson. Can he maintain that efficiency and also provide more explosive plays in Joe Moorhead’s offense? Would he be able to succeed leading the Mississippi State football team?

Reports are out and the Mississippi State football team is apparently hosting one of the most intriguing names in college football this weekend. Kelly Bryant, the former starting quarterback for the Clemson Tigers, is reportedly coming down to Starkville this weekend.

During the 2017 college football season, Kelly Bryant provided the Clemson Tigers with steady passing and only caused a few errors. He was efficient, completing just under 66 percent of his passes for 2802 yards. Looking at passing stats alone, those numbers alone show that he can be far more efficient than Nick Fitzgerald has been as a passer.

But, Bryant only threw 13 touchdowns during the entire 2017 season. Despite the fact that he completed 262 passes and threw the ball almost 400 times, he only had a meager 13 touchdown passes. That stat should raise some eyebrows.

As should his yards per attempt last season.

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Kelly Bryant averaged 7 yards per attempt. For comparison’s sake, that’s better than any of Nick Fitzgerald’s seasons as the starting quarterback. The closest Fitz has come to that was when he averaged 6.7 yards per attempt in 2016, a year in which Fitzgerald had career highs in pass attempts (361), completions (191), passing yards (2423), and touchdowns (21).

So, what’s the issue with Kelly Bryant only having 7 yards per pass attempt last season? Well, according to ESPN, he ranked 78th in the entire country in the stat. That’s not exactly where you want your starting quarterback to rank nationally.

The lack of reliable and consistent downfield passing contributed to the fact that Clemson in 2017 had the 119th most explosive offense in the country per SB Nation’s Bill Connelly’s S&P+. (MSU was 125th in 2017, for what that’s worth).

It should be noted that, in a limited sample size, Bryant was having slightly more success through the air this season before his decision to transfer. In 2018, Kelly Bryant completed 36 of 54 passes (66.7 percent) for 461 yards and had two touchdowns and one interception. He was averaging 8.5 yards per attempt.

Joe Moorhead’s offenses are supposed to make players more explosive. That’s what he did at Penn State and that’s what he’s trying to do here at Mississippi State. He wasn’t able to do that with Nick Fitzgerald as his quarterback and now he’s trying to make sure that the Bulldogs can win in the future.

Could a possible pairing of Moorhead’s offense with Bryant benefit both the quarterback and help redeem the scheme in the eyes of fans?

Working under the assumption that the Bulldogs can convince Kelly Bryant to come to Starkville, if Bryant is able to step in and can operate this offense efficiently while also making a few necessary big plays down the field, then there’ll be no issues at all with this move.

Hopefully that’s the case and Moorhead can pull this off. Bringing Bryant to Starkville might just make 2019 seem a bit brighter than what it does at the moment.

There’s certainly a chance that Kelly Bryant doesn’t choose to play his final season of eligibility for the Mississippi State football team. Even if he does, there’s a chance that the move won’t work out for anyone involved. Still, the Bulldogs have to try and make this work. Bryant is a talented quarterback and, well, it looks like Keytaon Thompson is struggling in practice.