Career
He was then a county agent for the United States Department of Agriculture in Kentucky. Kelly was a prominent tackle for the Tennessee Volunteers of the from 1911 to Winning all nine of their games, the squad was only the second undefeated team in Tennessee history.
The Vols were retroactively awarded a national championship by 1st-North-Goal, though this remains largely unrecognized.
One account of the Sewanee game that year reads "Mush Kerr played a wonderful game in the line as did Captain Kelly. The work of the Tennessee line was easily the feature of the contest, and Sewanee early discovered that it was practically useless to rely on line plunges to gain ground.".
