TEMPE -- The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame (NFF) have announced former Sun Devil starting quarterback Taylor Kelly as a member of the 2015 NFF Hampshire Honor Society.
Kelly graduated from ASU in May 2014 with a Bachelor of Arts in Educational Studies and is working toward a Master’s of Legal Studies with a focus in Sports Law and Business. He was a four-year letterwinner and three-time Pac-12 All-Academic honoree, including a first-team member in 2014 and a second-team member in 2013, and was named the Pac-12 Football Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
Kelly was recognized as the 2014-15 National Football Foundation (NFF) Valley of the Sun Chapter College Scholar Athlete of the Year and and 2014 NFF National Scholar-Athlete.
On the field, Kelly finished his career with a school-record 10,223 career yards of total offense. He was just the third player in school history with 10,000-plus career yards of total offense. He also set the school record for most career rushing yards by a quarterback with 1,404. Kelly helped lead the Sun Devils to back-to-back 10-win seasons and three straight bowl appearances.
The NFF Hampshire Honor Society is comprised of college football players from all divisions of play who each maintained a cumulative 3.2 GPA or better throughout their college career. A total of 817 players from 278 schools qualified for membership in the society’s ninth year, setting a new record for the number of schools represented in the history of the program, which began in 2007.
Qualifications for membership in the NFF Hampshire Honor Society include:
-- Being a starter or a significant contributor in one’s last year of eligibility (or a senior who has declared for the NFL Draft) at an NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision, Football Championship Subdivision, Division II, Division III or an NAIA college or university;
-- Achieving a 3.2 cumulative grade point average throughout entire course of undergraduate study; and
-- Meeting all NCAA/NAIA-mandated progress towards degree requirements.
The NFF Hampshire Honor Society capitalizes on the NFF’s National Scholar-Athlete program by greatly expanding the number of scholar-athletes the NFF can recognize each year. The program further strengthens the organization’s leadership role in encouraging academic performance by the student-athletes who play football at the 772 colleges and universities with football programs nationwide. The initiative has honored 5,744 student-athletes since its inception, and the program has experienced growth every year in either members or school participation since its launch in 2007. The 278 schools represented in 2015 is a new high water mark, eclipsing the 267 schools in 2014. The total of 817 players in the 2015 class is the second-most in the program’s history, only 21 behind the 838 honored last year.