Why Chip Kelly leaving UCLA for Ohio State isn't indicative of a bigger issue for college football

UCLA head coach Chip Kelly leaving that role to become the offensive coordinator at Ohio State, a team in the same conference now, quickly became one of the biggest stories of the college football offseason. For many, it has even led to concerns about coaches being able to retain head coaches.

Kelly’s move came up as a topic on Andy Staples On3, when Pete Nakos and Andy Staples were breaking down the biggest stories of the offseason. In both of their cases, though, Nakos and Staples agreed that Kelly becoming Ohio State’s OC isn’t indicative of a bigger issue for all of college football.

“First of all, Chip Kelly was trying to get NFL offensive coordinator jobs. He didn’t get one,” Andy Staples said. “But the first domino in all of this is Jeff Hafley leaving Boston College as the head coach to become the Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator.”

The move that Jeff Hafley made was largely cited by Hafley as a lifestyle move, allowing him to actually coach and get away from challenges like NIL. Those concerns that Hafley became a key part in the story of several head coaches leaving to be assistants. Interestingly, it was also the move that opened the Ohio State job for Chip Kelly.

“Boston College hires Bill O’Brien, who had just been hired as the OC at Ohio State. Chip Kelly then goes to work for his former quarterback and former assistant, Ryan Day at Ohio State, and, man, the think pieces that came out of this move. ‘Chip Kelly’s leaving a head coaching job to be an OC in the same league. Holy crap, what’s going on?’ It was a pretty big deal, though.”

At that point, Pete Nakos came in to argue that it’s not yet a trend, pointing out that Chip Kelly had issues at UCLA.

“I don’t think it’s a trend yet, Andy. I know that everybody wants to call it a trend. Now, all that said, I think Chip going from UCLA to Ohio State needs a lot more analysis. The fact that he wanted out, I don’t know if he was completely meshing with Martin Jarmond. I think there’s a lot there.”

At that point, Andy Staples jumped back in to emphasize how bad the situation was for Chip Kelly at UCLA. In doing so, he gave Kelly another motive to leave when he did.

“They were gonna fire him after the season if it wasn’t perfect,” Staples said.

On top of that, Pete Nakos pointed out that Eric Bieniemy just left the NFL for college. So, it’s not like things are a one-way street in terms of coach movement right now.

“Yeah. I think the one that pokes holes in the ‘people are leaving college for the NFL’ is earlier this week, right, Eric Bieniemy took the OC job at UCLA…But it’s so intriguing and, yeah, I had Chip Kelly and Jeff Hafley grouped together. So, we’re kind of aligned on that one.”