Joel Klatt: 'There is not a person in this business that Ryan Day trusts more than Chip Kelly'

Ohio State made some serious waves in the college football world when it announced it hard hired UCLA head coach Chip Kelly to serve as offensive coordinator on Ryan Day‘s staff.

The move instantly changes the outlook for the program offensively, but perhaps more importantly it gives Day someone he can trust with his seat just ever so slightly beginning to inch toward warm.

“When you’re at square one, when your back is against the wall, you tend to lean on things that you know and that you can trust,” FOX analyst Joel Klatt said. “There is not a person in this business that Ryan Day trusts more than Chip Kelly.”

Kelly clearly wanted out at UCLA, and he took multiple avenues to try to ensure he could make a clean departure for another job. Ohio State fit the bill perfectly.

“He tried to get into the NFL,” Klatt said. “He interviewed with the Seattle Seahawks, didn’t get that, Ryan Grubb gets that job. Now he can go work for his basically, I would call them best friends in the profession, maybe overall. Obviously they have history. Chip coached Ryan Day at New Hampshire.

“This relationship goes back a long ways. It makes all the sense in the world. There’s nobody that Ryan trusts more in this sport than Chip Kelly and now this new play-calling system at Ohio State is going to have Chip Kelly at the helm.”

Kelly will also have some added familiarity.

“He’s going to have his old offensive line coach that came from UCLA, Justin Frye,” Klatt pointed out. “So they’re going to be back together.”

As for the actual on-field weapons that Kelly will now have at his disposal, few coordinators in the country will have better. The Buckeyes are absolutely loaded at the skill positions.

Kansas State quarterback Will Howard arrives and is likely the guy pulling the strings offensively. But he’ll have ample help.

“One of the things that I’m looking at is like Chip can go there and he’s like, ‘I’m sorry, wait… so you’re going to give me a mobile quarterback, the best backfield in the country with (Quinshon) Judkins and (TreVeyon) Henderson, you’re going to give me Emeka Egbuka and Carnell Tate, and I get to call plays?'”

Not a bad setup.

So what will Kelly do that could change the outcomes for Ohio State in the key games that it needs to win to take the next step forward as a program?

“I think Ohio State will become a better running team,” Klatt said. “Chip Kelly rushes the football as well as anybody in the country, as well as anybody. That’s what UCLA did and I think Ohio State is going to lean into that a little bit more. Remember, over the last three years part of what has got them beat against Michigan is that Michigan was the better fundamentally sound running team. Having to stop their run was very difficult. They could control the clock and they could control the game.

“And now all the sudden you’ve got Chip Kelly. Last year Ohio State was 88th in the country running the football. I think that needs to get better. I think that needs to get better. And it will.”

Klatt made no bones about it. He thinks this move has helped the Buckeyes immensely.

“Nobody’s had a better offseason than Ohio State,” Klatt said. “This adds to that. There’s no question in my mind.”