Chip Kelly explains his role among Ohio State's collaborative coaching staff

Chip Kelly surprised a lot of people when he decided to step away from 14 seasons of being a head coach at the college and NFL levels to become the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Ohio State this offseason.

Kelly spent the last six years as the head coach at UCLA, but it’s also no secret that the responsibilities of a college coach have changed recently in the evolving collegiate athletics landscape. As he now looks to shift his focus back to exclusively playing his role in coaching up the Buckeyes’ offense, a role that he’s thoroughly enjoyed in his few weeks in Columbus already.

“The one thing about being here is there’s so many other good people in place that you don’t have to do more than just your role,” Kelly said on Thursday on The Pat McAfee Show. “I gotta coach quarterbacks and work with the offense, but when you look over in practice and there’s Larry Johnson, and there’s James Laurinaitis, and there’s Jimmy Knowles, and there’s Tim Walton. You look at those coaches on the defensive side and you’re like wow.”

Ohio State’s strong coaching staff got even stronger with the addition of Kelly. As the offensive mastermind also spoke glowingly about collaboratively working with the team’s offensive coaches.

“Then you get a chance to work with Brian Hartline every day and Justin Frye, and Tony Alford, and Keenan Bailey. Everybody has a role and it’s going back to being a good team, and I think when everybody on a team understands what their role is you don’t have to do more than your role,” Kelly explained.

The college head coach is tasked with playing more of a CEO role in today’s college football ecosystem, with a heavy emphasis on roster management and recruiting and their relationship with NIL and fundraising. A world that Kelly is excited to put in his past with his focus on Columbus strictly being on the X’s and O’s and developing the team’s talented quarterback room.

“As Coach [Bill] Belichick says just do your job. I’m excited to just do my job and I don’t need to do anything else, I don’t need to do the other things that a head coach wants to do. I just get to coach quarterbacks and be with them every day and this group of quarterbacks we have here is awesome,” Kelly said. “The fact that get to be in a meeting room with those guys every day is pretty cool.”

Along with the current players and staff, the closeness of Ohio State’s alumni has also been noticed and embraced by Kelly. Mentioning that former players like Joey Galloway, Bobby Carpenter, and John Cooper have been around for spring practice as he invited former Buckeyes’ linebacker AJ Hawk to come visit to close out McAfee’s show.

“There’s such an OSU family, it’s exciting to see all these players and how much they care and the fact that how much they’re around this building,” Kelly said. “You understand how special this place is.”

Ohio State and Chip Kelly seem to be a perfect match, especially at this point of Kelly’s career, as he’ll look to elevate the Buckeyes’ offense and help the team reach championship heights in 2024.