football player<\/a>?<\/strong><\/p>\nI was always a big kid growing up and my dad and I would watch football on Sundays and Saturdays and I always knew deep down that\u2019s what I want to do. It\u2019s always straight forward for me. My dad never played sports and he told me I better try and once I did, I fell in love.<\/p>\n
What are your favorite moments from your football life?<\/strong><\/p>\nI would have to say one of my favorite moments was being a freshman and just playing in that first game, stepping onto the field for the first time and I remember my first rep was against a left tackle from Sheridan, Wyoming. He was a commit to Wyoming at the time and I remember my first rep against him i kind of blew him up and then the next rep he kind of blew me up so that\u2019s one of my favorite memories because it was my welcome to football moment. And then in college my favorite memory has been this entire experience just every Saturday going out with my best friends and my brothers, my family and just going to war with the five guys in the trenches. It\u2019s just every Saturday is my best memory it seems like.<\/p>\n
Which one of your family members inspires you the most and why?<\/strong><\/p>\nMy wife, she\u2019s amazing. She has sacrificed so much to keep me in school while she works ever since she graduated last year, we had our daughter. She sacrifices everything every day and every day that is inspiring to me because she\u2019s just sacrificed so much for me. And I\u2019m very grateful for her.<\/p>\n
What are you looking forward to in your upcoming season?<\/strong><\/p>\nI have a pretty hefty goal for myself. I want to give up zero sacks and even zero pressures and I\u2019m super excited to try to accomplish that goal. I got pretty close last year and this year I\u2019m going to get it. I\u2019m looking forward to going to war every Saturday with my brothers on the line, I love it. I love the violence and all that, there\u2019s nothing like being an offensive linemen.<\/p>\n
If you could hang out with any football player past or present for a day, who and why?<\/strong><\/p>\nI think it\u2019d be really cool to hang out with Joe Thomas and just pick his brain because he\u2019s so smart when it comes to football at the offensive line level it would be amazing to just hang out with him and he seems like a really cool guy as well.<\/p>\n
What are your favorite things about playing football for\u00a0South Dakota School of Mines?<\/strong><\/p>\nMy favorite things are probably like the grind we have to go through with having a very tough academic school. I mean most people go to school for academics, not football so we\u2019re all kind of in the same boat and it\u2019s a grind. I love the grind. I also love the brotherhood it\u2019s definitely different than most college teams because we go through everything together. We\u2019re up late studying almost every night together. The brotherhood is amazing, I love it.<\/p>\n
What should we know about AJ Kelly\u00a0the person?<\/strong><\/p>\nI consider myself a blue-collar worker, I love the hard work. I\u2019m a family man, I love my daughter, I love my wife, I love my parents, my siblings and my in-laws. I\u2019m a family guy, that just loves hard work, I grew up in it and I don\u2019t shy away from it.<\/p>\n
What is your favorite offensive scheme and why?<\/strong><\/p>\nI would have to say Inside Zone, I like running the ball, every offensive linemen should always say that but I love it because it\u2019s like the truest form of football and you can just hand the ball off and see what the offensive line can do. It\u2019s five offensive linemen against six or seven defenders and you know we got to win with physicality. It\u2019s a violent sport made for violent men and I love it up there on the line.<\/p>\n
How do you handle challenges both in life and on the football field?<\/strong><\/p>\nHead first, you can\u2019t be afraid to fail, you\u2019re going to fail at some point might as well just learn from it and keep moving on. Successes will come. You know people won\u2019t remember you\u2019re failures as much as your successes so just head first and dive on in and there\u2019s nothing to be scared of and if you fail just try again.<\/p>\n
What would a team get in a player like you?<\/strong><\/p>\nSomeone who is not going to let anyone outwork him, a person who loves the physicality of the game and someone who\u2019s going to bring it every day. A true hard worker from Wyoming.<\/p>\n
What stands out about your film the most?<\/strong><\/p>\nDefinitely my physicality, I love taking people to the ground and going there with him. If you can\u2019t finish a block you can\u2019t finish anything. If it\u2019s pass or run or anything it\u2019s physical, your guy can\u2019t make a play if he\u2019s on the ground.<\/p>\n
Who is the most underrated player you\u2019ve played with and why?<\/strong><\/p>\nI would have to say Jeremiah Bridges from my freshman and redshirts freshman year. He was a wide receiver we had and he was just amazing at what he did. You know a lot of our game plan seemed like throw it up Jeremiah\u2019s down there somewhere. He was a great leader, one of the big guys that took alot of the freshman under his wing and helped us out. Can\u2019t replace what he did for our team from a leadership standpoint. <\/p>\n
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Writer\/Scout\/Interviewer for Draft Diamonds since January 2020. You can find me on X at @jrberendzen and Instagram at justinberendzen<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Read More<\/a> Justin Berendzen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Football<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":864980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774,3790,32661],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-864979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-draft","8":"category-football","9":"category-prospect"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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