Kelly ready for a new challenge

It happens about once every three weeks.

Sleeping in his Charlottesville apartment, Matt Kelly will have a vivid football dream.

The shoulder pads are in place. Play is set to start with a kickoff. The crowd is going wild inside Scott Stadium.

Suddenly, the fantasy turns to a nightmare as the former Virginia lacrosse star is kept off the football field for myriad reasons.

“There are some nights where I can’t really fall asleep because I am thinking about putting the pads on and strapping them up one more time,” said Kelly, who owns the UVa record with 67 career starts as a defenseman in men’s lacrosse. “I kid you not, I really have a high school football dream every three weeks.

“I get so close to stepping on the field and something happens.”

Luckily for Kelly, it is merely a graphic dream.

On Friday as Virginia opens training camp, reality replaces the visions as Kelly will officially return to the gridiron after a four-year hiatus to dominate for the school’s lacrosse coach, Dom Starsia.

In an attempt to possibly bolster some special-teams units, Kelly has been welcomed by coach Al Groh to compete for a role — any role — for assistant coach Ron Prince’s packages.

“I know that I am not going to start at any position. That is out of the question,” said Kelly, who is listed as a safety on Virginia’s roster. “I am just here to give my best effort and play special teams.”

A second-team all-state running back as a senior in 2004 at New Trier High in Kenilworth, Ill., Kelly was recruited by numerous Big Ten schools as a safety or weakside linebacker.

A three-time all-state performer playing prep lacrosse, the opportunity to compete for one of the nation’s premier programs and Starsia was simply too much to pass up.

As a freshman and sophomore at Virginia, Kelly rarely missed football. But that changed during his third year as he continued to recount his playing days at a rapid clip.

Kelly finished his three-year prep career with 4,033 rushing yards and 47 touchdowns and even edged out former Illinois and current Pittsburgh Steelers tailback Rashard Mendenhall for one accolade.

“We went to rival high schools and we were the two running backs for three years in a row and that was our big game,” Kelly said with a smile. “I ended up winning conference player of the year over him.

“That’s kind of my claim to fame.”

With that memory and others dancing through his head, Kelly said he fell victim to what he coined the “What if” game.

“What if I decided to go play Big Ten football? I think about that a lot,” he said. “Where would I be right now? What kind of person would I be? I always kind of thought about that a little bit.

“Over the last six months, towards the end of my lacrosse career and when I knew I was going to be playing football again, I wondered if I went and played football out of high school where I would be right now with four years of football training.”

Kelly approached Starsia last fall to ask about playing football once the requirements for his degree in history were complete and his eligibility expired in lacrosse.

Starsia asked Kelly to compile a list of non-Division I schools that he would be interested in transferring to. Kelly said it was Starsia’s belief that earning playing time as a tailback at Virginia, given the 105-player roster limitations, was not a viable option.

“I don’t think Dom knew my goal was just to play some special teams if I could,” he recounted.

Starsia later approached Groh, setting up a meeting between the coach and Kelly.

The two shared a unique bond.

“Dom didn’t think they were going to take me being a fifth-year guy that hadn’t played the sport in four years, but one of the things that helped, I think, was when I sat down with coach Groh on the first day and he talked about how we are kind of in the opposite set of shoes,” Kelly said. “He was a football player that played lacrosse his last year of college at Virginia.

“He understood from my standpoint what I was looking to do. He has given me this opportunity and I am really psyched.”

Groh asked Kelly to meet with former Virginia special teams star Josh Zidenberg, who will serve as a graduate assistant for special teams this year with the Cavaliers.

“He thought that Josh and I had similar backgrounds being great high school running backs,” Kelly said. “Coach Groh saw Josh kind of as a special-teams guru. Josh really excelled at that and that is what I am gunning for.”

Kelly knows he faces an uphill battle, but loves contact and is aware that is a requisite on special teams units.

The thrill of running out of the tunnel at Scott Stadium outweighs the pain and anguish that will come from being a selfless player on punts, kickoffs and scout team drills.

“My roommate for four years, Max Pomper, who was a football guy in high school, and I always talked about what it would be like to run out there in front of 50,000 people or play in a packed stadium at the collegiate level,” Kelly said. “It was something that I always wanted to do. In lacrosse, I would consider myself a football guy with a stick.

“I really wanted to do this. I felt like I couldn’t close the chapter in the book of my life without doing it.”

He just hopes his storybook finish comes with a new nickname.

“I hope my friends don’t start calling me Rudy,” he joked, “because that would be kind of embarrassing.”