Love him or hate him, the one thing former Ole Miss quarterback Bo Wallace was during his three-year run as the Rebels quarterback was consistent. Wallace started all 39 of the Rebels’ games from 2012-14, leading the team to two Egg Bowl victories and three bowl appearances in that time.

However, Wallace has since run out of years of collegiate eligibility, bringing his Ole Miss career to a close, and head coach Hugh Freeze and his staff have now been charged with finding the team’s next starting quarterback before the 2015 season kicks off in September.

Spring practice may not match the speed or intensity of live football in the fall, but it would appear to be the perfect time for Freeze to find his next signal caller, allowing that player to have all of fall camp to develop a rhythm with the first-team offense.

That’s not to say Freeze should choose his starting quarterback in April if there isn’t an obvious choice, but it is to say he should be seeking out the obvious choice if there is one in the coming weeks.

And it appears there is an obvious choice to take over the quarterbacking duties in junior college transfer and former Clemson backup Chad Kelly. But Kelly will be battling himself more than any other player to lock down the starting job.

The nephew of NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly was dismissed from Clemson in 2013 as a disciplinary measure, and last season he threw for 3,906 yards and 47 touchdowns while leading East Mississippi Community College to its third national title since 2011.

He has the raw talent (perhaps he can thank the Kelly family genetics for that) to play at a major program, which is how he ended up at Clemson out of high school in the first place. And clearly that talent has been developed at least a little since his high school days, as evidenced by one of the most dominant junior college seasons of all-time.

But Kelly hasn’t quite left his troubled past in the past. He was arrested for an altercation outside a Buffalo, New York, nightclub less than a week after signing with Ole Miss, and he’ll have to serve community service in Oxford this offseason as a punishment.

Coach Freeze has already taken accountability for Kelly’s actions should the quarterback find himself in trouble again during his Ole Miss career, so there’s no guaranteeing Kelly will simply step into the starting job without having to prove both his football abilities and his maturity to the coaching staff.

However, Kelly is the consensus top talent among the quarterbacks on the roster, and if he behaves and puts in the work to learn the Rebels offense this spring he should be the starter Week 1.

His contenders in the ongoing quarterback competition are rising redshirt sophomores Devante Kincade and Ryan Buchanan, two players who floundered while sharing the No. 2 quarterback duties last season.

Kincade and Buchanan combined to complete 28 of 42 throws for 202 yards, one touchdown and one pick, playing almost exclusively in mop-up time with the exception of a humiliating 30-0 loss to Arkansas.

It’s obvious neither was able to stand out ahead of the other based on the way the two shared backup duties last season, and it’s obvious Freeze isn’t completely sold on either based on his recruitment of Kelly during the junior college recruiting cycle last winter.

However, should Kelly misbehave, Freeze will likely have to choose between the two or allow both to share the starting job to open the season this fall. Thus, both Kincade and Buchanan still have plenty to prove this spring.

For Kelly, the spring is all about learning a new offense and showing maturity in doing so. For Kincade and Buchanan, it’s about making a lasting impression that could separate one from the other, giving the better of the two a more defined role within the team’s future.

Kelly is the favorite in the competition, but he’s also the wild card. The job should be his to lose as the spring approaches, but if his past has taught us anything, it’s that nothing is certain when it comes to Kelly.