Clemson’s coaching staff recently checked in on a local legacy recruit who is on the program’s recruiting radar for the class of 2022.

Greenville (S.C.) wide receiver Aalijah Kelly, the son of former Clemson running back Yusef Kelly, heard from the Tigers through his high school coach.

“They went to my coach and they were asking about how my knee was, because they know that I got hurt and stuff, so they were asking about how my knee was and they were saying I’m on their board and they would be looking out for me this coming up year,” Aalijah told The Clemson Insider.

The 6-foot-4, 170-pound rising junior missed his sophomore season in 2019 due to an ACL injury but is now fully healthy again and says his knee feels great.

“I’m 100 percent,” Aalijah said. “I feel faster now than I ever was.”

Aalijah is honored to know he has a spot on Clemson’s wide receiver board for 2022, especially considering how selective the Tigers are with who they recruit at the position.

“It means a lot,” he said. “But it also means I need to work harder because they only recruit the best of the best. So, to get an actual offer and be able to go, I have to be the best of the best, so I have to work hard every day like I do and just keep grinding.”

Aalijah is training diligently, both with others and by himself, as he prepares for his upcoming junior campaign.

“I’ve been working out every day at TNT Sports with Joe Don Reames,” he said. “I’ve been working out with him every weekday for like one to two hours, and then I also go to EPT with Ramon Robinson. I work out with him for my receiver-specific stuff, and I lift on my own time at my house.”

Along with Clemson, schools such as Virginia Tech, South Carolina, Northwestern and Coastal Carolina are showing interest in Aalijah, who holds an offer from Liberty.

As Aalijah goes through the recruiting process, while trying to improve his game as a player, he is able to lean on his father who was a standout running back for the Tigers in the early 2000s.

“He tries to help me be better than he was,” Aalijah said of his dad. “He knows how to get there, so I listen to him on that. When he tells me to work harder, I work harder because I know he’s trying to get me to where he was and beyond that. So, he helps me out with football and recruiting.”

It goes without saying that an offer from Clemson, and the opportunity to follow in his father’s footsteps as a Tiger, would be a very big deal for Aalijah.

“I know with Dabo, he’s a great players’ coach,” Aalijah said. “They go in as basically boys and come out men, so I’d like to be around that. And I’ve been around it so long and I’ve been a Clemson fan all my life, so it would just be huge for me.”

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