Ryan Day breaks down Chip Kelly's evolution as Ohio State playcaller

When Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day brought in Chip Kelly to be the team’s next offensive coordinator, it was a massive move that saw a sitting head coach step away from that role. Now, as the Buckeyes prepare for the second round of the College Football Playoff, it seems to have worked.

Throughout his career, Kelly has been known as an excellent play-caller. Still, Day has still seen his offensive coordinator continue to evolve in that role. In particular, that has changed at Ohio State as he’s become more comfortable with the roster.

“I think that he’s now, a full season in, he’s got an understanding of who we are personnel-wise,” Day said. “Now, in the Big Ten, what that looked like, and so to your point, it has evolved with — he’s got a great understanding of the entire game of football, offensive football, whether it’s wide open and spread and tempo or getting with multiple tight ends in the game, huddling, different styles of play, and he’s always said, and we’ve always said that the number one job of the coordinator is to put the offense in the best position to be successful.”

Kelly came up in the coaching ranks as an offensive mind. That included stops as an offensive coordinator at New Hampshire and Oregon before becoming the Oregon head coach in 2009. Since then, he’s been a head coach in both college and the NFL, needing to adapt to several new situations.

“So, that has to do with our personnel. It has to do with what we’re seeing on defensive,” Day said. “And now I feel like we had a good balance this past game. So we’ll look to do that as we put together a game plan for these guys.”

At this point in the season, Ohio State is 32nd in the country in total offense, averaging 427.3 yards per game. The Buckeyes are also 11th in the country in scoring offense, averaging 36 points per game. They’re also coming off a game in the College Football Playoff where they scored 42 points.

Now, Day and Kelly are looking to have the Buckeyes prepared for the quarterfinal rematch against the Oregon Ducks. Earlier this season, Ohio State scored 31 in a losing effort against the Ducks but will now look to flip the switch in a neutral site game and come out with a win.