Travis Kelce is set to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame someday and is already among the league’s best-known tight ends. He built his name from the ground up, after head coach Andy Reid gave the once-rowdy 20-something a chance in the NFL. However, had former Cincinnati Bearcats head coach Brian Kelly made a different decision, things would have been wild for Travis Kelce.

UCLA men’s basketball coach Mick Cronin knew Kelce before he began his career at Cincinnati. At the time, Kelce also used to play basketball and wanted to play for Cronin. On the Games With Names podcast, the coach recalled a conversation with Kelly and said that Kelce was a “big-time quarterback.” But Kelly replied in jest and said, “Oh, no. I’m moving his a– to left tackle.”

“😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Mick!! Man, that one got me!” Kelce reacted playfully in the comments.

Kelce played quarterback in high school for a good three years, and was also a letterman at the position. In his senior season, he tallied 1,523 passing yards and 15 touchdowns, along with 1,016 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, he was offered by Michigan, West Virginia, and Michigan State. But Travis Kelce followed his elder brother Jason to Cincinnati.

Brian Kelly had a different vision entirely for Kelce’s football future than the two-sport arrangement the latter was interested in. Kelce ultimately committed to Cincinnati as a quarterback recruit, redshirted his first season in 2008, then moved to tight end the following year. That season, he recorded only 3 yards for one catch as a pass catcher, but he played as quarterback.

Kelly left for Notre Dame after the 2009 season, leaving Butch Jones to take over the program and continue developing Kelce at his new position.

“It was a process,” Jones told The Enquirer. “But when you look at the position traits that you look for in a tight end from a toughness standpoint, from an athleticism standpoint and from the ability to create matchups against a defense — it was a no-brainer. But he had to put himself into that position. He had to work every day. Every day there were struggles and triumphs, but in two years he became a changed individual on and off the field.”

In 2011, Kelce (then a third-string TE) caught 13 passes for 150 yards and two touchdowns, then broke out in 2012 with 722 receiving yards and eight touchdowns. Today, he is a three-time Super Bowl-winning tight end and is the all-time career receiving yards leader in Chiefs history. From three yards in 2009, Travis Kelce now has a staggering total of 15,080 receiving yards.

None of that would have happened if Kelly’s left tackle plan, as Cronin described it, had actually gone through instead of the tight end conversion Jones eventually oversaw.

However, he did “dream” of playing like one very elite quarterback when he was younger.

“Josh [Allen] is who I used to dream of being like in the NFL,” Kelce said in 2025. “Big, athletic quarterback, big arm, being able to be a dual-threat guy. I just never had the arm talent that Josh has, so they kicked me over to tight end.

“His ability to do everything — you can tell, he really took the bull by the horns and been their leader up front, and channeled that,” Kelce said. “Guys come in and out of the building and he’s the main guy that makes them go, week in, week out. I have so much respect for that guy.”

For Chiefs fans, the story is another reminder that Kelce’s road to becoming an NFL star was anything but straightforward. Things could have turned out very differently if Cronin’s basketball pitch or Kelly’s plan for him on the offensive line had worked out instead of Kelce eventually finding his way to tight end, the position that would define his career.