How Should Duck Fans Remember Chip Kelly?

David Marsh Editorials

If this article was written a month ago it would be rather uncomplicated, but Chip Kelly recently took a shot at his former team and Dan Lanning’s absolute brilliant 12-man on the field play that sealed the Oregon win over Ohio State back in October. In saying that Oregon needed 12 players to beat them, it diminished the success and brilliance of his former team and changed the way we as fans look at our former head coach. Even Mr. FishDuck had some feedback about Coach Kelly, and took a break from his study of best sports betting sites to share his spirited thoughts.

The Rise of Chip Kelly and the Ducks

At Oregon, Kelly served as the offensive coordinator from 2007-2008 and then took over as head coach where he ran the program for four years (2009-2012). In that time he brought Oregon to never before seen heights, with three conference championships, a BCS National Championship game appearance, and two BCS bowl wins in the Rose Bowl (2011 season) and Fiesta Bowl (2012 season).

The Kelly era, without a doubt, created the modern Oregon program. Oregon was already transforming under his predecessors Rich Brooks and Mike Bellotti but Kelly’s blur offense did something different when coupled with Nike’s newest uniform innovations. Together they made Oregon cool.

It isn’t a surprise that Oregon became a trend setter for its on-field play as the Ducks disrupted the status quo. Even Nick Saban, who was opposed to the up-tempo offenses at first, would later go on to adopt much of this new style of offense to incorporate it into his own National Championship winning teams.

But even in uniform design, after the 2012 Rose Bowl, chrome helmets became all the rage throughout college football as teams from all over the county looked to imitate the Ducks’ style. Even gloves baring the team’s logo when the hands were put together go back to Oregon, as it was Oregon who rolled out special gloves that when put together created the Oregon O.

Chip Kelly walks the sideline against USC in Oregon’s smashing of USC.
(Photo By: Kevin Cline)

And the coach at the center of all of this was Chip Kelly himself, who went 46-7 as a Duck. It was a sad day among the Oregon fan base when Kelly left at the end of the 2012 season and went to become the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. But most fans were fine with it, as the program kept on rolling under Mark Helfrich for the next couple of years. Perhaps the comfort to fans was that Kelly was in the NFL and would not be coaching against the Ducks.

Kelly’s Return to College

Then Kelly made a return to college football with the UCLA Bruins. To say there wasn’t anxiety in Kelly’s return to college football in the Duck fan base would be a lie, especially since Oregon was set to play the Bruins in 2018. Sure, head coach Mario Cristobal was reaching new recruiting heights, but not so much in terms of offensive output.

The question on everyone’s mind was how fast UCLA would turn into a monster of a program in Pac-12 under Kelly’s leadership.

The reality is that it never happened, as Kelly went on to have a 35-34 record in his five years at UCLA. After his fifth season, to everyone’s surprise, Kelly opted to call it quits and left for the Ohio State offensive coordinator position. So what went wrong?

Kelly had something special at Oregon where he had a long tenured staff around him who knew him before he was their head coach.

The Oregon defensive coordinator at the time, Nick Aliotti, changed the Duck defense to compliment the Oregon offense by implementing the bend-but-don’t-break style of play — and in turn the number of scholarships for the defense ballooned. Aliotti needed a deeper rotation of players because the offense could and often would score in under two minutes. He needed more defensive bodies available because the defense was just going to be on the field longer.

It mostly worked and the rest of the offensive staff complemented Kelly’s vision for the program beautifully, as the Oregon team under Kelly routinely found and developed the players Kelly needed to run his offense.

But after Kelly’s departure he never found that same chemistry with any of his other coaching staffs. Beyond that, it has been well documented that Kelly has never really loved recruiting. At Oregon the recruiting operation was inherited as the long tenured staff knew what they wanted from their recruits, and Kelly just had to be the face of the flashy new Oregon program.

The recruiting bump Oregon experienced under Kelly had less to do with Kelly and far more to do with the Oregon brand, which did include Kelly but it also included a fun offense, cool uniforms and tons of winning. After Kelly’s departure Helfrich’s recruiting numbers were similar and Bellotti, Kelly and Helfrich were all statistically quite close to each other in terms of average recruiting.

Dan Lanning and Chip Kelly shake hands after their first game in 2022.
(Photo By: Craig Strobeck)

In his time at UCLA, Kelly never beat his former team and as Duck fans, that enabled us to continue to like him as a coach because he wasn’t causing us any harm. Winning makes it easy to like your opponent; however, Kelly was on the losing side of this conference rivalry and that clearly hasn’t been easy to stomach.

Kelly Gets His Ring

Ohio State came into the Rose Bowl game against the Ducks incredibly well prepared and their talent advantage played to their level, and it was an embarrassing loss for the Ducks. For the Ohio State team it felt personal to beat the Ducks down. They had, after all, lost the two previous meetings to Oregon. But for Kelly it was his first win against his former program and it opened the door for Kelly to finally win a National Championship.

Between the Rose Bowl loss and his 12-man comment, it feels like Oregon fans’ love of Kelly has been given a reality check. Kelly is no longer our coach and he hasn’t been since the 2012 season concluded. Kelly brought something special to Oregon and we will love him for what he did for us, but it doesn’t appear Kelly has much love for his former team.

It is unlikely Kelly will receive a warm welcome in Autzen for the rest of his coaching career.

The Kelly era ended 13 years ago at Oregon. He’s changed and we’ve changed. Maybe he’s no longer a Duck, but some day he will be again when he is inevitably honored for his achievements at Oregon. Until then he will remain our competition.

But how do you think we should remember this former man of Oregon?

David Marsh 
Portland, Oregon
Top Photo By Kaly Harward

 

Natalie Liebhaber, the FishDuck.com Volunteer Editor for this article, works in technology in SLC, Utah.

 

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