Vols have a new frontman in aspiring surgeon Todd Kelly Jr.

Todd Kelly Jr. has put in the work to have the best senior season possible for Tennessee, to lead the defense and make plays from his safety position, to give one more push forward to the program he’s loved all his life, and near the end of it he will be asked to assess his legacy.

And those questions will be ill-timed, because Kelly’s legacy is a done deal. He can whiff on every tackle when the No. 24 Vols open their season Monday against Georgia Tech in Atlanta, and the Vols can lose every game this season, and that won’t change how he should be remembered.

It’s in the No. 24 on his back, the gratitude of a bunch of fifth-graders at Knoxville’s Lonsdale Elementary and a story from his father. A year ago Kelly started preseason camp in a battle for a starting job while finishing up a little summer-session class called Organic Chemistry I.

This class apparently is as rough as it sounds – “The most dreaded course on campus,” said Brian Russell, UT’s director of academic support services – and though Kelly got that starting job, he narrowly missed on an ‘A.’ Todd Kelly Sr., who sells surgical devices to orthopedic surgeons, got in touch with some of his doctor buddies for information to comfort his son.

“I think he’d gotten maybe one or two ‘B’s in his life, ever,” Todd Kelly Sr. said. “But my friends are telling me, ‘I couldn’t even get a ‘B’ in Organic Chemistry, and I wasn’t playing college football at the time.’ ”

A new face out front for the Vols

It’s fitting that Kelly’s best friend is Joshua Dobbs, because Kelly is the next Dobbs. You just might not know it because Kelly is a safety and Dobbs was a star quarterback who is now a rookie with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Another difference is that, while Dobbs astounded as an SEC quarterback handling an aerospace engineering major, Kelly’s football prospects are secondary to his plans to attend medical school and spend his life as surgeon.

“Nothing in the future is certain, but my plan is to go to medical school regardless of what happens with football,” said Kelly, whose major – biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology – is difficult to say fast, let alone fathom in tandem with SEC football. “I’d love to play in the NFL, but you never know what will happen – no one does. So to me, coming to college for four years is a sacrifice that’s worth a lifetime. You want to sacrifice these four years to make sure you have everything under your belt and can enjoy what you want to enjoy down the road.”

To put it another way, in the words of Russell: “Todd is the model student-athlete and he’s what we hope all of our student-athletes can become in their time. He had a goal when he started here and that goal was, ‘How can I prepare myself for medical school while playing football at the highest level?’ He’s worked every day with that in mind.”

“Student-athlete” is a term that gets thrown around in college sports to the grating nerves of those who cover it, because this is big business and big money, with coaches over-emphasizing the promise of professional sports in attempts to lure top athletes. Every major college football program has shrines to its top pros with the implicit message, “This can be you,” even though about 1.5 percent of college football players have any kind of pro career. Far fewer stick around long enough to make life-changing money.

And every major college football program has players whose majors are chosen to maximize the chances of staying eligible, to keep those players on the field. The latest outspoken critic of the system was UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen, who told Bleacher Report his football schedule has interfered with economics classes he wanted to take and said: “Look, football and school don’t go together. They just don’t.”

“I did,” Kelly said when asked if he saw Rosen’s comments. “I can’t really relate. I guess he lives a different life from me. We’re here at a university and the university is based on academics.”

Tennessee allows players, and key players, to take majors they want, and that’s commendable. But it only works with highly motivated students willing to sacrifice other aspects of college life. The hours in a day don’t add up otherwise. Kelly actually did switch his major, from biomedical engineering to BCMB – because he especially enjoys cellular biology and believes that will better prepare him for med school.

A gesture and and a follow-through

So remember him for demonstrating what this is all supposed to be about, and in ways beyond academic excellence. When Kelly switched jerseys from No. 6 to No. 24 before his junior season, it was done to honor Zaevion Dobson, the Knoxville Fulton High football player who died at age 15 in December of 2015 while shielding two young girls during a drive-by shooting.

That was a nice gesture, but this has been more for Kelly. He has reconnected with Zaevion’s older brother, Zack, a childhood friend, and stayed close with the family and helped them spread their anti-gun message when possible. He went to Lonsdale Elementary school to speak at an event honoring Zaevion, and from there started volunteering in a fourth-grade class at the school. He will keep it up this year.

“I’ll have an opportunity to send them off to middle school before I graduate from Tennessee, and I just want to show them the importance of education and of being voices in their community,” Kelly said, and Zaevion is the ultimate example of sacrifice for all of them.

“I never take for granted that I’m wearing No. 24,” said Kelly, who prepped at Webb School of Knoxville. “I think about Zaevion when I put it on, and when I have hard times and want to give up, I think about how he gave up his life to save someone else’s life. A lot of people would say they’d do that, but he actually did it.”

'The ball always seems to find him'

Amid this maturity and perspective is a good football player. Kelly has contributed for coach Butch Jones since he was a true freshman in 2014 and became a full-time starter last season. He has eight career interceptions, most on the roster, and defensive coordinator Bob Shoop is counting on him to lead and make plays at his highest level yet in 2017.

“The ball always seems to find him, he’s a warrior and he plays the game the way it’s meant to be played,” Shoop said. “As a leader, he’s not in your face like maybe a Derek Barnett or something like that. He’s more thoughtful in his approach, but I think everyone has to be the best version of themself and not try to be someone else. And he is.”

And that shouldn’t be overlooked.

“It’s not always easy to be the smart kid on the team who studies hard at night and takes difficult classes,” Russell said. “But Todd has the personality that’s so well-rounded that he’s still able to lead on the field.”

There’s a certainty to all of it, tracing back to Kelly sitting in Neyland Stadium as a 2-year-old watching Peyton Manning and as a 3-year-old watching Tee Martin lead a national championship team. Todd Kelly Sr. was a star defensive end for Johnny Majors and Phillip Fulmer at UT and a 1993 first-round pick of the San Francisco 49ers. His pro career was shorter than hoped, just four seasons, and then it was back to Knoxville to get started on life after football.

He and his wife, Renee – his college sweetheart and director of Knoxville’s Emerald Academy – put school well over sports for their children (older sister Clarke is an Alabama graduate and former Alabama cheerleader). It was during a sixth grade career-day trip with his father to observe him on the job that Kelly determined he wanted to be surgeon.

“I just thought it was awesome,” Kelly said. “Improving someone’s life, that’s what I want to do.”

He also wants to savor this final season at Tennessee and help deliver a championship he believes this team is capable of winning. There’s no doubt he’s prepared. And he’s had enough time to get over the “B” he earned this summer in Organic Chemistry II.

Contact Joe Rexrode at jrexrode@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter @joerexrode.