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Kelly recaps Vandy visit

Four-star 2014 safety Todd Kelly of Knoxville (Tenn.) Webb School was joined by a few family members when he stopped by Vanderbilt on Sunday to meet Commodores coach James Franklin. One of them was his grandmother.

Todd Kelly

"She lives in Nashville," Kelly told 247Sports. "She really wanted to meet him. She says before he got there she wasn't really a fan. But the way he coaches, she likes his style."

According to Kelly, Franklin impressed everyone in the family. Grandma included.

"It went awesome," Kelly said. "I definitely liked meeting Coach Franklin. He's a great guy. Very energetic. He seems to have the program turning around. He talked to us about everything. Anything I wanted to talk about. My grandmother is trying to get him to go to her church. He said he would try."

All told, Kelly spent approximately 20 minutes with Franklin and 90 minutes on campus.

"Some of the players walked us up to his office," Kelly said. "They said that he was a great guy, easy to get along with. Every player said they were glad of the decision they made. At some places it's not like that. He was very personable. That's all I wanted to do, meet him and see [defensive backs] Coach [Bob Shoop] again. I wanted to make sure they saw my face."

Although Kelly, whose father played at Tennessee, has not yet started to narrow things down, he said Vanderbilt has made a strong impression on him thus far.

"Definitely … especially with their academics," Kelly said. "You know that it's a pretty good school. I'm definitely going to be considering them as well as other schools."

Keith Niebuhr

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