Shortly upon becoming the head coach at Ole Miss, Hugh Freeze immediately took the SEC by storm with his incredible ability to lure talented high school athletes to play for him.

Well, the recruit who is making the greatest impact this year did not come from a high school.

That would be Chad Kelly, who is coming from East Mississippi Community College. The former highly-touted dual-threat quarterback recruit originally committed to Clemson, only to be dismissed last April. Kelly chose to attend East Mississippi to play for a year before getting back into Division 1 football.

All he did was absolutely dominate all season long. Running an up-tempo spread offense that is similar to the one he is running now at Ole Miss, Kelly racked up gaudy numbers – nearly 4,500 yards of total offense and 52 total touchdowns with only eight interceptions – en route to winning the junior college national championship.

Through two weeks of the season, Kelly is proving to be just as dynamic. He has led the Rebels to two offensive explosions in its first two games, topping the 70-point plateau in both contests. In last week’s 73-21 drubbing of Fresno State, Kelly led the offense to touchdowns on every drive he played.

The junior signal-caller from Buffalo, New York – who is the nephew of NFL legend Jim Kelly – leads the NCAA in ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating. His incredible 234 QBR mostly stems from his stellar 72.5 completion percentage and the fact that he is averaging a whopping 14 yards per pass attempt.

Throw in the damage that he is doing with his legs – he has rushed for at least 20 yards and a touchdown in both games – and Kelly is looking like a game-changing college quarterback. One who can elevate Ole Miss to elite status after last season’s 9-4 breakout campaign that included an upset of third-ranked Alabama and a spot in the Peach Bowl.

However, Kelly and the Rebels will face by far their toughest test on Saturday night, as they travel to Tuscaloosa to face second-ranked Alabama. Last year, Ole Miss pulled off a dramatic upset of the Crimson Tide, as Bo Wallace threw a touchdown to Jaylen Walton with less than three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter to shock the Tide.

What makes the Rebels scary is that they have the talent on offense to be much more dynamic than last year, when the Wallace-led unit was plenty productive, averaging nearly 30 points and 420 yards per game.

And it all starts with Kelly. He is faster than Wallace was and possesses a much stronger arm, both of which have been on full display in the first two games of the season.

"His deep balls are one of the better balls that I've ever encountered from high school and since I've been here," Quincy Adeboyejo, who had five receptions for 120 yards and three touchdowns against Fresno State, told Jeffrey Wright of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.

Adeboyejo is only one of the myriad of weapons that Kelly has at his disposal in this Ole Miss offense. Freeze has done a phenomenal job of stocking his roster with tremendous athletes, and Kelly is utilizing them with expert precision.

Cody Core leads the Rebels in receiving yards, Adeboyejo leads in touchdown catches and Laquon Treadwell, not only the most skilled receiver on the team but one of the best in the nation, has the most receptions so far this year.

Also featured on the offensive side of the ball are Evan Engram, the SEC’s best tight end, and speedster DaMarkus Lodge, one of the jewels of Freeze’s latest recruiting haul. Neither of them have been used much yet, which is truly a testament of the Rebels’ superb depth.

“It’s nice to have a lot of options, that’s for sure,” Kelly told reporters after last Saturday’s victory. “One person could have zero catches and next week they have seven for three or four TDs. You just never know. That’s what a great offense does. It has many weapons so you’re not keying on one person.”

While Engram has yet to make an impact in 2015 – he has caught one pass for five yards – he will be one of the players that the Alabama defense will be “keying on”, according to Christopher Walsh of Bleacher Report.

“Add quarterback Chad Kelly into the mix, a consistent deep-ball threat who can also run,” Walsh writes. “And it’s probably just a matter of time before Hugh Freeze and his coaching staff unleash Engram, giving the offense another important weapon who has to be accounted for.”

Ultimately, the Rebels have the ability to beat Alabama. The Tide secondary has been vulnerable in the past against spread offenses who move quickly and spread the ball around, and Kelly and Co. will surely try to exploit that weakness.

A few things need to go right, of course, but that’s always the case when playing Nick Saban’s team. The Rebels’ vaunted “Land Shark” defense will need to be at its best, and the offense will need to establish some sort of running game so Kelly doesn’t have to win the game by himself.

But even if the Rebels are forced to throw early and often, there aren’t many offenses that are better suited to do just that than Ole Miss. Couple a legitimate dual-threat quarterback that has proven he can make plays with a plethora of ultra-athletic skill players, and what you get is an absolutely lethal combination.

So even if the Rebels don’t beat Alabama like they did last year, as the season goes on they will be better than they were last year. The 2014 team was certainly solid, but it struggled at times to match the offensive firepower of some of its opponents – Auburn and TCU immediately come to mind.

With Kelly behind center, they will definitely not have that problem.

Freeze has assembled the necessary pieces to feature one of the best offenses in college football, and at the center of it all is Chad Kelly, who might not have committed to Freeze out of high school but will be a star in Oxford nonetheless.