In one of the most surprising coaching moves of the 2024 offseason, former College Football Coach of the Year Chip Kelly left his position as head coach at UCLA to become the offensive coordinator at Ohio State. With his debut for the Buckeyes mere days away, head coach Ryan Day has explained how Kelly will work with him.
Speaking to the media this week, Day explained that he intends to have Kelly up in the coach’s box for games. He believes that having Kelly up there will allow him to stay more organized on gameday.
“His plan is to be up in the box,” Day said, via Letterman Row. “I think, for him, being able to get organized up there. He’s got the tablet up there. He’s got his call sheet up there. He can really be clean after every series. I think that’s one of the things two that he and I were talking about was that when you’re on the sideline and you’re the head coach, you have your call sheet, but it’s hard to get your next series ready when you’re doing all these other things.”
“When you’re up there, you’ve got a desk, you can sit down and you get your thoughts organized for the next series,” Day said. “You can go through everything. You can communicate well. So, that’s gonna be his plan.”
Day and Kelly have known each other for decades. Day played quarterback under Kelly when Kelly was the offensive coordinator at New Hampshire and was later hired as Kelly’s tight ends coach after graduating.
The two would be reunited on the sidelines over a decade later with Day serving as QBs coach under Kelly for the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers. They went their separate ways again in 2017, with Day joining the Buckeyes under Urban Meyer and Kelly taking a year off before joining the UCLA Bruins.
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