Philadelphia Eagles: Chip Kelly’s going back to college
After failing to latch on in the NFL, former Philadelphia Eagles head coach Chip Kelly is going back to college where he belongs.
Chip Kelly may be one of the least popular head coaches in Philadelphia Eagles history.
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After turning the Oregon Ducks into a national power, Kelly took his services to South Philly to succeed fan-favorite Andy Reid as the new head coach of the Eagles, and promptly decided to remake the roster to fit his… unconventional style.
And change it he did.
Within two years of arriving in the City of Brotherly Love Kelly banished fan favorites LeSean McCoy, DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin and Michael Vick from the city, and quickly lost the faith of the locker room, the fans and even owner Jeffrey Lurie, before unceremoniously being relieved of his duties with one game left to go in his third season with the team.
Following an atrocious season with the San Francisco 49ers, Kelly again found himself without a job for the second time in as many years, turning to an analytics job at ESPN for his next employment opportunity.
After coming to the NFL with incredibly high expectations, and admittedly taking the league by storm in his first season with a fast, high-powered offensive, his gimmicky scheme was quickly diagnosed by opposing coaching staffs and was easily thwarted. Like the Wildcat offense before it, once opposing teams could dissect Kelly’s rudimentary play calls on the spot his speed advantage was negated and actually used against the team.
Kelly-helmed teams ranked dead-last in time of possession in all four of his pro seasons, a stat that quickly caused fatigue among defensive players and veterans alike.
Shouts of “go back to college!” became commonplace in the Linc over Kelly’s last season with the team, and on Saturday, November 25th, Kelly is doing just that.
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After much speculation as to where he would land next, be it the pros, college or as an offensive coordinator, Kelly was officially named the next head football coach for the UCLA Bruins, replacing Jim Mora, who was fired only two days prior. While he was being courted by the University of Florida, a much more prestigious football school in the heart of the SEC, Kelly will instead be returning to the Pac-12, a conference he revitalized almost half a decade earlier, and could again dominate in the near future.
Even though I’m sure it hurts Kelly’s ego to have essentially failed as a professional coach, many of college footballs best head coaches, like Bobby Petrino, Nick Saban, and Jim Harbaugh, had horrible stops in the NFL before establishing some of college football’s most consistent programs.
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While it’s unclear if Kelly will be able to finally establish the Bruins as a national power, the coach is entering into a situation that’s almost tailormade for him to succeed in. The Pac-12 isn’t exactly college football’s strongest conference, and with the wealth of young talent available to recruit in the Southern California area, Kelly could build his own dynasty in the City of Angels.