Fueled by fatherhood, Nyjalik Kelly embraces leadership role at UCF
Edge rusher Nyjalik Kelly is entering his second season at UCF with high expectations.
Coming off a 2024 season in which he earned All-Big 12 Honorable Mention honors and posted 5.5 sacks with 53 total tackles, Kelly was one of UCF’s highest-graded defenders by PFF with a season mark of 78.7. Now, as the 2025 season approaches, he’s expected to be both a top performer and a vocal leader for the Knights’ defense.
“It’s been a challenge because I’m not old myself,” Kelly said. “I’m still a young guy. I’m still 20. So it’s like trying to tell 21, 22-year-old people that’s older than me on what to do. But I feel like everybody respects me enough to listen. And I listen as well. So it’s not just one-sided. They get on me when I do something wrong. That’s where the brotherhood comes in.”
Excited about surrounding talent on defense
Ask Kelly who’s been flashing in camp and he deflects the praise to the entire unit.
“I wouldn’t really say we had any standouts because everybody’s really complementing everybody’s game,” Kelly said. “So if one person gets a sack, somebody else in the back end is covering very well. If I get a sack, then you see Antione Jackson catching a one-hand pick. So it’s really everybody complementing everybody’s game.”
Kelly and Jackson go way back. They were teammates at Fort Lauderdale’s Dillard High School.
“He’s been looking great, but I’ve known he was like that,” Kelly said. “When I was a senior and he was a freshman, he was always making big plays.”
Kelly is also excited to see the entire defensive line in action.
“Of course, excited to see John Walker. He’s back. I’m excited to see RJ Jackson and Horace Lockett,” he said. “There’s plenty more. I don’t want to leave any names out, but I’m excited to see everybody come play and show what they have to show.”
Kelly said the defense’s struggles in 2024 stemmed from poor tackling. He believes that’s going to be vastly improved.
“If all 11 hats, how we’re doing it in practice, fly to the ball, I feel like we should be a great team.”
The Frost culture
Kelly says the environment head coach Scott Frost has instilled is one of both fierce competition and tight-knit family.
“Everything we do is really a competition,” he said. “He wants a senior to help a freshman, a freshman to help a sophomore. It don’t matter. He just wants everybody to be together and not cliques and pieces.”
That competitiveness shows up every day in practice, especially during spirited offense vs. defense battles.
“I love being competitive,” Kelly said. “I love talking junk to the quarterbacks, to the o-line, and they talking junk back to me. They score, we stop them. They win a two-minute, we win a two-minute. So I love it being competitive. You don’t never want a team to just be one-sided.”
The culture feels different, and Kelly says it’s because of the family-first mindset.
“Family,” he said. “I feel like everything is family-oriented. (Frost) wants everybody to be together. So I feel like the culture is family.”
Playing for something bigger
When Kelly’s not disrupting backfields, he’s focused on one thing: His daughter.
“She just turned two on June 3,” Kelly said. “Her name is Masunni Kelly.”
Fatherhood, he says, has shifted his entire perspective.
“Before I had a child, I didn’t really look at life. I looked at life just for me,” he said. “So now that I have to feed another mouth, I have to take life more serious now.”
And she’s on his mind every time he steps on the field.
“If I want to skip a rep, I’d be like, dude, I can’t because I got to do this for Masunni,” Kelly said. “I got her on my arm. I write her name on my shoes. So everywhere I look, I see her name just to remind me of who I’m playing for.”
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