Chip Kelly recalls what drew him to Dillon Gabriel while at UCLA

Chip Kelly once tried to get Dillon Gabriel to UCLA while he was still the head coach of the Bruins.

When Gabriel left UCF and entered the NCAA transfer portal, he initially committed to UCLA before having a last second flip to Oklahoma. Following his stint with the Sooners, Gabriel ended up at Oregon this year for his final year of college football.

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So now going up against him, at least team-wise, Kelly described what made Gabriel a special quarterback and why Ohio State will have its hands full with Oregon in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals.

“Yeah, I’m not surprised at the success Dillon has had,” Kelly said. “You know, you could see it when he was at Mililani in Hawaii in high school, and then watching what he did at Central Florida didn’t surprise me, the success he had at Oklahoma, nor the success he’s had at Oregon. He’s extremely accurate. I think he’s really calm. There’s a poise about him that I think is kind of special for the quarterback position. 

“Doesn’t seem to get rattled too much, really has a true understanding of what they want to get accomplished there and it’s also really athletic so that if you do take away some of his options from a throw standpoint, he can beat you with his legs so I think he’s he’s the complete package. And one of the top quarterbacks in the country.”

Sure, Kelly will have to operate his own offense with QB Will Howard. Perhaps the Ohio State OC will have to cook some things up to keep up with Gabriel in the quarterfinals.

Leading the Ducks to a 13-0 season and Big Ten title, Gabriel has 3,558 yards, 28 touchdowns, six interceptions, a 73.2% completion percentage, 192 rushing yards and seven rushing touchdowns this year.

Gabriel and Kelly have a relationship, but it’ll be put to the side in the Rose Bowl, the host of this year;s CFP quarterfinals.

Oregon, and Ohio State for that matter, will have to clean things up from the first meeting.

“Just cleaning up all things that we need to,” Gabriel said. “I think in self scout and the first two weeks, and even preparing for the opponents we could play, I think it allowed us to do a lot of soul searching and how we could be better, or this could be the difference in being good to great. We talk about it a bunch, but easy to say, hard to do.

“So just being intentional in that and when we do get those reps, how we can make it even better. Or that one block, that one key catch or throw that could be the difference. So that’s what we’ve been harping on.”