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Mar. 6—COLUMBUS -Chip Kelly wants to coach until he dies, but he also just wants to coach.
That, in a nutshell, is why he is the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Ohio State in 2024 rather than the head coach at UCLA, where he spent the previous six seasons and was under contract for four more.
Kelly turned some heads across the college football world last month when he did something few do — seek out essentially a demotion.
“I do a lot of things other people don’t do,” he said to some laughter. “I don’t know if that’s right or wrong.”
The decision was not one he made overnight once Ohio State suddenly needed another new offensive coordinator in the wake of Bill O’Brien leaving to become the head coach at Boston College.
Kelly said he started thinking about changing roles in December while the Bruins were preparing to play Boise State in the L.A. Bowl.
He mentored the quarterbacks when Ryan Gunderson left for Oregon State, giving him the opportunity to do something he had not done in 15 years: Coach a position group.
That sparked his interest in making a change.
“To me the best part of football is football, and so you got to do football and not do some of the things the head coach has to do,” Kelly said.
Today that means recruiting high school players, of course, but also one’s own roster with the transfer portal always an option for current players.
There are fundraisers to attend, donors to court, boosters to meet, more media obligations and many other tasks for a head coach that are not concerns for assistants.
“I get to decide what my future is going to be, so what do I want to do?” Kelly said.
Kelly needed the right opportunity to leave UCLA, though, and that turned out to be Ohio State, where one of his most successful former pupils was looking for a revamp of his own heading into his sixth season as a…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/why-chip-kelly-left-ucla-194400263.html
Author : Dayton Daily News, Ohio
Publish date : 2024-03-06 19:44:00
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