Mario Cristobal offers high praise to Nyjalik Kelly's potential

Miami head coach Mario Cristobal has had freshman edge rusher Nyjalik Kelly under his wing for just a few short months but the former Ducks coach knows he has a winner.

Cristobal waxed poetically about the young defensive lineman at practice on Thursday.

“I was doing everything possible to get him to Oregon, feel very confident he was going to come there too,” Cristobal joked with reporters. “This is what sets him apart. If he walked up right now, he looks like a power forward on an elite basketball team. It starts with him having a tremendous upbringing. His mom is one of a kind. He was raised right. He’s a tremendous human being. He loves football. Nyjalik would play football all day, every single day if he could.

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“Length, explosion, suddenness, his foot and body quickness is elite,” Cristobal continued. “His ability to accelerate, and decelerate… he’s very heavy-handed, with light feet at that. He’s got just a very unique, elite recoverability. He could be in a twisted, contorted position and spin out of it to make a play. As he learns (the system) more and more and more, he’ll be an elite player.”

Nyjalik Kelly shaping into early contributor for Cristobal

Mario Cristobal recruited Kelly while he was at Oregon. However, it was only once he got to Miami that he finally got the verbal commitment from the Fort Lauderdale native. The 6-foot-4, 255-pounder chose the Hurricanes over more than 25 other offers, including Oregon, Florida, Florida State and others.

He was a major part of Miami’s 2022 recruiting class. He ranked as a four-star recruit and was the 9th-best EDGE in the class, according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

Miami begins the 2022 season at home on Sept. 3 against Bethune-Cookman before the first top-25 test of the year versus Texas A&M on Sept. 17. It’s very likely that fans will get to see Kelly early on the field sporting the No. 90 jersey.