The Ohio State Buckeyes are entering the 2024 season with one of the most high pressure situations of any program in the country.
This fan base expects the Buckeyes to contend for national championships and head coach Ryan Day appears to be on the hot seat ahead of next season.
Ohio State has had a few coaching mixups this offseason and initially landed former NFL head coach and Alabama OC Bill O’Brien as the team’s next OC. Ultimately, O’Brien’s stint in Columbus didn’t last long as he opted to take the Boston College head coaching job when it came open.
So once again, the Ohio State Buckeyes needed to find a upper-tier offensive coordinator — and after interviewing for several NFL offensive coordinator jobs —former UCLA and NFL head coach Chip Kelly, who hasn’t been able to simply focus on coaching as a coordinator since 2008, inked a deal to become the next OC at Ohio State.
On Thursday, Kelly joined the Pat McAfee show and was asked about his decision to step away from a head coaching role to accept an OC position with the OSU in the same conference as his former program, the UCLA Bruins, as the new Big Ten takes shape.
“I say it all the time but the best part of football is football, and at the collegiate level we’ve seen so much change and I think the head coaching role has become much more about being a CEO than a head coach,” Chip Kelly said.
“And I understand that, it comes with the territory, but I was at a point in time where I could make a decision of what I wanted to do. I wanted to coach, I really enjoy being with the players, I really enjoy the chemistry you have when you’re together in a meeting room. I had not been in a meeting room since 2008.
At a head coach you visit the meeting rooms, but the head coach isn’t in a linebacker meeting. He may peak his head in to see how everyone is doing but I got a chance to coach our quarterbacks in our bowl game, because our QB coach left to coach at Oregon State.
So I got a chance to coach the quarterbacks, was in the meeting room daily for two weeks leading up to our bowl game against Boise State, and I almost forgot how fun that part is.”
Chip Kelly On His Experience In Columbus So Far, Reveals Who Will Be Calling Plays For Ohio State Buckeyes
When asked about the decision to join Ohio State specifically, Kelly saw it as the perfect opportunity.
“As I thought about it, I got to a position where I could say, ‘here’s an opportunity to go be a coach again, not a CEO. It would have taken a really special place to get me to leave UCLA, but the opportunity to come to Ohio State, and just focus on coaching, and not have to do the things a head coach has to do now in college football…appealed to me.”
Chip Kelly said the culture that Ryan Day has established for the Ohio State Buckeyes immediately stuck out.
“You can get lost in this building, so trying to navigate that has been interesting. I’ve found myself walking through the weight room 3-4 times trying to find my office. But it’s been awesome.
I think the culture Ryan has here has been awesome, I think the players here have been fantastic, They love football. That’s the one thing I can tell you from my short time in being here. These players love football, these coaches love football and you know what it’s like being in Ohio, football is the sport in this state and I’ve really enjoyed it. We’ve had two training sessions, we were on the field this morning, we were on the filed Tuesday morning, so it’s been awesome.”
Kelly couldn’t stop raving about having the opportunity just to coach again.
“We were just watching plans when you called, I’ve been able to do football 8-9 hours a day and it’s been great to get back to that. I’ve seen Ryan get pulled out of meetings, and I’m like, ‘I’m good.’ My goal is, Pat, I want to be as happy in my job as you are in your job.
We talk about it all the time, if you love the process the process will love you back. And just the fact to embrace that. It’s liberating in a way. The one thing about being here, is there’s so many other great people in place that you don’t have to do anything more than your role, I gotta coach quarterbacks and the offense. Everybody has a role.”
Tone DIggs brought up play calling with Ryan Day typically leading play calling duties for the Ohio State Buckeyes in past years and Brian Hartline having the “co-offensive coordinator” title with Chip Kelly for 2024.
Kelly, who has called plays for more than two decades, had the perfect response.
”Simple, I said it the other day,’I will call all the good plays and Ryan will take the brunt for all the bad plays,” Kelly said with a grin.
