Mike Farrell Sports

College Football Recruiting, Opinion, and Analysis

Is Ohio State Getting a 2010 Xbox Chip for 2024?

New Ohio State offensive coordinator Chip Kelly is living well off his obsolete past.

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By Rock Westfall

Former UCLA head coach and new Ohio State offensive coordinator Chip Kelly is living well off his obsolete past. 

Is Chip Kelly a BlackBerry in an iPhone World? 

Once upon a time, Chip Kelly was the hottest coaching brand in football, college or pro. After serving as offensive coordinator of the Oregon Ducks from 2007-2008, Kelly was promoted to head coach after the legendary Mike Bellotti retired.

Kelly wasted no time making an immediate splash. In four seasons, he posted records of 10-3, 12-1, 12-2, and 12-1, with a near miss in the 2010-11 national championship game against Cam Newton and the Auburn Tigers. Kelly also produced two Rose Bowls and a Fiesta Bowl. He has the highest win percentage of any Oregon coach in history. Stars such as LaMichael James, Darron Thomas, and Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota flourished under Kelly.

In those days, Kelly masterminded the most ferocious and terrifying offenses ever seen. The Quack Attack was literally a force of nature. Kelly could have hung a hundred on several opponents, in some cases in the first half, had he not called off the dogs. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. Kelly was considered a super-charged Xbox Chip. But beneath the surface, Chip Kelly had some unfair advantages unique to those days.

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Nike and the Bag Man  

Nike founder and Oregon alum Phil Knight wrote a blank check to his alma mater for upgrades in all things athletic, especially football. Knight emerged as the defacto owner of the Oregon Ducks. While such investments were not illegal, they were quite uncommon. Only Oklahoma State alum and oil baron T Boone Pickens could compare.

There was the implication that Oregon players would eventually land jobs at Nike if they signed on the dotted line. Nike enticed recruits with unlimited combinations of wild uniforms, the likes of which had never been seen in football. Those sets were a magnet, as was the Nike swag that Oregon offered. It proved to be a major advantage. But that was not all.

Chip Kelly never liked recruiting. But in Oregon, that was not a problem. The Ducks had a bagman, Will Lyles, who did all the heavy lifting. When Kelly was in Oregon, there was no such thing as NIL. Any payments to players were illegal and under the table.

All told Oregon and Chip Kelly had profound and unmatchable advantages. 

One Step Ahead of the Posse  

NFL owners ignored or were unaware of Kelly’s unique advantages at Oregon. Kelly was touted as the man who would reinvent football. And to many, that theory was unimpeachable. 

With the NCAA walls closing in on Oregon for the Will Lyles association, Kelly bolted for the riches of the NFL Philadelphia Eagles, where he could focus purely on football without scholastic or recruiting concerns. With an 18-month NCAA show cause, it was believed he would never return to the college ranks.

After consecutive 10-6 seasons at Philadelphia, Kelly fell to 6-9 in 2015 after acing out Howie Roseman for full control of the roster. Roseman exacted his revenge within months, and Kelly was shown the door.

Yet Kelly still had a good NFL reputation, as evidenced by his immediately landing the HC position of the San Francisco 49ers. However, a 2-14 season made him damaged goods, and he was fired.

UCLA Aspired to Mediocrity With a Name Brand Beard 

In 2018, Kelly was hired after spending a year on TV by the UCLA Bruins. There was plenty of excitement in Los Angeles and comparisons to the late great basketball Wizard of Westwood, John Wooden.

However, UCLA football stopped being a thing at the start of the millennium. The institution considers itself “Public Ivy” and has a haughty demeanor of intellectual superiority. Also, UCLA reeks of political correctness and loves to virtue signal about its women’s and Olympic sports. Further, when it came to the revenue programs, it’s men’s basketball team was always given top priority. Championship football stopped being a priority after coach Terry Donahue‘s days.

Kelly was given time for a heavy lift and started with records of 3-9, 4-8, and 3-4 in 2020. Finally, his program took off with marks of 8-4, 9-4, and then ending at 8-5 in 2023.

Kelly and UCLA discovered that a repeat of Oregon’s dominance was impossible, especially without a fully committed administration and lack of NIL benefits to attract recruits. Los Angeles fans smelled out the fraud and refused to battle traffic to attend games at far away Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena. The entire athletic department is currently drowning in red ink.

Could Kelly Fail Forward at Ohio State?

Chip Kelly has painfully learned that championship football is not about Xs and Os but instead about Jimmys and Joes. His systems are no longer exotic, nor will they work without superior personnel. Kelly was humbled in the NFL, where all things are equal. And then he was outgunned by programs that cared and invested more during his time at UCLA.

On Friday, Kelly was named offensive coordinator of the Ohio State Buckeyes under his former prodigy, Ryan Day. At Ohio State, Kelly will enjoy significant personnel advantages almost every week and won’t have to recruit much, if at all. 

Kelly’s schemes are mostly reruns of his glory days, with some adjustments and weeks, but with the right talent, he may make a difference. In fact, he may be so successful against overmatched opponents that he could end up as a head coach again someday.

Chip Kelly has learned that a coach is only as brilliant as his personnel, even if he once was celebrated as the ultimate Xbox Chip. As Oklahoma coaching legend and Hall of Famer Barry Switzer always says, the better and smarter coach is the one with the superior players.

If Chip Kelly succeeds, it will be for the same reason that he did not meet expectations at UCLA. His success will be tied to the commitment of Ohio State to football and the superior resources necessary to attract the country’s best players. The rest of it will be gravy, including his coordination of the offense.

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