Cole Kelley

Kelley played football and basketball at Teurlings Catholic High School in Lafayette, Louisiana. He joined the University of Arkansas as a four-star recruit in 2016. He started four games as a redshirt freshman in 2017 and two games the following year before transferring to Southeastern Louisiana University in 2019.

Kelley won the Walter Payton Award for the 2020–21 FCS season, given to the top offensive player in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).^[1] He threw for 2,662 yards and 18 touchdowns in 2020. Among these games, he threw for more than 300 yards in every game. He received first-team All-American FCS honors in both 2020 and 2021.^[2][3]

The 2021 season was the best year for Kelley. He threw for 5,124 yards, 44 touchdowns, and ran for 491 yards and 16 more touchdowns. Among those games was a 647 yard game in a loss at UIW, where he also had 68 attempts. He had a 285.0 passer rating in a game against Northwestern State, which would count as a perfect passer rating for NFL standards.^[4] Because of his exceptional performance that year, he was invited to the January 2022 edition of the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl and was named the game MVP.^[5]

Season	Team	Games			Passing								Rushing
		GP	GS	Record	Cmp	Att	Pct	Yds	Y/A	TD	Int	Rtg	Att	Yds	Avg	TD
2017	Arkansas	0	0	—	Redshirted
2017	Arkansas	9	4	2–2	87	151	57.6	1,038	6.9	8	4	127.5	53	74	1.4	2
2018	Arkansas	9	2	1–1	35	67	52.2	455	6.8	5	5	119.0	28	73	2.6	3
2019	Southeastern	13	0	—	69	93	74.2	810	8.8	10	2	179.1	89	200	2.3	10
2020	Southeastern	7	7	4–3	210	305	68.9	2,662	8.8	18	4	159.0	76	46	0.6	7
2021	Southeastern	13	13	9–4	406	552	73.6	5,124	9.3	44	10	174.2	161	485	3.0	16
FBS career		18	6	3–3	122	218	56.0	1,493	6.8	13	9	124.9	81	147	1.8	5
FCS career		33	20	13–7	685	950	72.1	8,602	9.1	72	16	169.8	326	731	2.2	33