Mario Cristobal shares Nyjalik Kelly will miss remainder of season
On Monday, Miami Hurricanes head coach Mario Cristobal announced that edge rusher Nyjalik Kelly is likely going to miss the remainder of the season.
It’s a big blow for the Miami defense, which has been playing well and just had a massive effort against the Clemson Tigers in a much needed bounce back win. A huge part of that defensive effort did come from the defensive front seven in the game.
“He’s been out for a little while,” Mario Cristobal said. “I can tell you, Nyjalik will be out probably for the rest of the season. It’s a little bit more significant.”
In four games this season, Kelly has eight total tackles and one tackle for loss. This is coming off a massive freshman season in 2022, where he had four sacks. He came to Miami as a four-star recruit in the Class of 2022, according to the On3 Industry Rankings.
Nyjalik Kelly missed last Saturday’s game against Clemson, forcing others to step up in his absence. Now, Miami will need to find a way to replace him for an extended period of time.
In the absence of Nyjalik Kelly, Mario Cristobal is looking for his other defensive linemen to step up. One of those players, Rueben Bain, received plenty of praise from Cristobal for his performance to this point in the season.
“He’s unique and the thing is he’s doing it with power, also. It’s not like he’s just a speed guy or a guy that comes in situationally. He’s doing it on an every down basis and his play count is probably the highest on the defensive line. So, conditioning is there as well,” Cristobal said.
“He’s been able to put up veteran-like numbers, and high-end veteran-like numbers, as a true freshman and doing the dirty work too, now. Jumping in there and getting the A-gap sometimes, when he’s called to do so, and rushing the edge, and taking on tight ends and tackles and chip blocks as well. So, he’s been incredible. He just goes, doesn’t say much, just focused on playing great, great football, and he’s impacted the team not only as a leader but as a person.”
Mario Cristobal shares injury update on Tyler Van Dyke after missing Clemson game
Another key Hurricane who has been dealing with an injury is quarterback Tyler Van Dyke. He missed the Clemson game, and after the game Mario Cristobal shared an injury update on his signal caller.
“He is doing well. He was good to go and in the middle of the week it flared up and caught us off guard,” Cristobal said.
“It was the right thing to play Emory [Williams] because he was getting most of the reps. We feel like he will be good to go next week, but I will hold off comment on that until we get back to the training room so I can give you more accurate data.”