4. New leaders are emerging
Confession: I think covering the concept of leadership in college football is nearly impossible. Leadership happens behind closed doors. Who do teammates truly respond to? Who does all the right things?
All we can go off of is what coaches and players say about leadership and make a few observations in our short amounts of time on the field to try to draw some conclusions in this area. So I don’t pretend to know who the true leaders on a team are, but I have seen some guys try to step up through their actions in the first week. Running back John Kelly is one of them. He’s right near the front of every line and is always talking and seems to bring a lot of energy. I do think based on that, and how the team responded when he played last year, that he is one of the emerging leaders.
Darrin Kirkland Jr. is one of the guy who spoke to the media in the past week that said he’s taking on that role as well. So those two, plus Todd Kelly Jr. and Jauan Jennings, are some names that have stood out early in this area, and it will be interesting to see how this evolves over the offseason.
