The Chip Kelly Renaissance is Here

Then Washington head coach Steve Sarkisian told the Wall Street Journal back in 2011, "We can't just wait until the week of the game to get our defense prepared for that tempo." During Kelly's tenure in Eugene between 2009 and 2012, the Ducks would amass a record of 46-7 , appear in four consecutive New Year's Six games, and finishing within a field goal of winning the 2010 national championship against Auburn.

After the questionable relationship between Kelly and recruiting analyst Will Lyles, some felt that was Kelly's motivation to leave Oregon for the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles because of feared NCAA sanctions. Kelly would later apologize about the Lyles issue and ensuing NCAA penalties, but re-emphasized that the NCAA investigation had no bearing for him departing Oregon. 

Kelly was steadfast on going to the NFL stating in his introductory press conference with the Eagles, "I'm all in, I think it was Cortez who said 'burn the boats.' I've burned the boats and I'm not going back. I'm an NFL coach. I would have never made the decision if there was any trepidation left."

Kelly would also make the remark of, "I'm an equal opportunity scorer. We'll score any way we can."

Early on in his tenure in Philadelphia, Kelly found success making the playoffs his first season, achieve back to back 10-win seasons and in each of those seasons be in the Top 4 scoring offenses in the NFL. 

Prior to the 2015, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie promoted Chip Kelly to be in charge of the management of the roster in addition to his head coaching duties. Lurie explained that Kelly wasn't satisfied of the status quo of winning 10 games a season and thought the roster could be better. Lurie explained supporting Kelly with this move, “I’m an owner that tends to absolutely be supportive of a coach and his vision if it’s a real sharp and smart vision,” Lurie said. “I really believe in that. I’m probably influenced by some of the people that we all respect, with Bill Walsh, Jimmy Johnson and others in other sports.”

It was at this time where Kelly may have been over his head and started to make significant moves with the organization. He traded Nick Foles, brought in Sam Bradford. But the move that everyone remembers is the LeSean McCoy for Kiko Alonso trade that started a notorious beef with McCoy.

All of Kelly's moves backfired and the Eagles regressed to a record of 6-9, feeling the pressure from the Philadelphia base, Lurie fired Kelly. Kelly wasn't a coaching free agent for long however, as the San Francisco 49ers hired Kelly. After a disastrous 2016 season that saw the 49ers go 2-14, he found himself unemployed yet again. 

Once hailed as an offensive genius and innovator, the bloom of Kelly's flowers seemed to be wilted and fallen apart. 

After spending a season on television with ESPN, Kelly had the itch all coaches have to return to the game they have a deep passion for. Kelly had interviews with Florida and eventually UCLA. With offers and opportunities being extended to Kelly, he decided to return to UCLA and try to restore their once proud football program. 

The Bruins have not won the Pac-12 or been to the Rose Bowl since 1998, and for many Burins fans, getting their top choice for the football program was a shock. Then athletic director Dan Guerrero said of the Kelly hire, "His success speaks for itself, but more than that, I firmly believe that his passion for the game and his innovative approach to coaching student-athletes make him the perfect fit for our program.”

While everyone heralded his hire, expectations were promising with Kelly returning to a familiar conference and college football. Bruin fans were hoping to return to respectability quickly. 

However, the turnaround Kelly engineered had a very rocky beginning. Kelly would lose his first five games at UCLA, and would achieve consecutive 0-3 starts to seasons for only the second time in program history. 

Things were once again looking bleak in 2019. During a mid-September game at Washington State, the Cougars had a 49-17 lead with five minutes left in the third quarter. All indicators pointed to a 13th loss in 16 games for Kelly. UCLA linebacker Lokeni Toailoa forced a key fumble and the Bruins offense responded on a Chase Cota 37-yard touchdown reception from Dorian Thompson-Robinson. 

Inspired by the response, the Bruins defense began to make key stops and forced turnovers. Coming into this matchup, the UCLA offense had been held to 14 points per game and less than 300 yards per game (worst in the Pac-12), and the Bruins were the only time in the conference to average less than 300 yards per game. But on this night - in this second half - they could not be stopped. 

When the final gun sounded, the Bruins engineered the third largest comeback in college football history in a 67-63 win over Washington State. They scored 50 points in less than 19 minutes of game time.

Kelly would say after his first signature win for the UCLA program, "I always thought we were a good football team if we could be consistent."

He added, "When you are battle-tested like our guys are, I think that showed up today."

The grind continued, but the Bruins went on to snap an 11-game losing streak to Stanford, obtain their first three-game winning streak in four years, and defeat rival Southern Cal. 

Since then, Kelly has began to But entering the offseason, Kelly would start leveraging the transfer portal in getting key transfers in running back Zach Charbonnet (Michigan) and Jake Bobo (Duke). 

Entering 2022 season, UCLA was seen as a dark horse as most in the media felt the conference would come down to Utah or Southern Cal winning, and even Oregon with first year head coach Dan Lanning would be in the mix. 

The Bruins have embraced the underdog roll and have taken care of Washington, who was another Pac-12 surprise team, and defeating Pac-12 preseason favorite Utah, and now Kelly goes home again, where he created his genius persona. 

His mentor looks at his protege and sees all the work and energy Kelly put in paying off, “It took a while,” said Mike Bellotti, who hired Kelly as his offensive coordinator before the 2007 season and supported Kelly becoming his successor as head coach two seasons later. “It certainly took longer at UCLA than I’m sure he thought it would. He chose to stay and work and it’s certainly paying off not just for Chip and for the team but for the entire university, and they’re one of the best teams in the nation.”

For Kelly the return to Autzen means something but keeps a good perspective, “It’s always special going back there, it’s a special place in my life and there’s a lot of great people there that had a profound impact on my life, but I’m not playing the game.”

He might not be playing in the game, but his impact to the game has been revived and UCLA's future, win or lose on Saturday has a bright future ahead. For us fans, we only can wonder what goes through the mind of like Chip Kelly's and what's next we can only imagine.