This is a story about two roads in Florida, and the Oregon Ducks.
Down these roads drove Chip Kelly, one during the summer of 2007 and the other, yesterday.
Both times he was a long way from home; in 2007, he was recruiting for New Hampshire, yesterday for Oregon. Down that road he got a call from Mike Bellotti in 2007 about a job offer in Eugene to direct his offense.
Yesterday, he asked him to be the future head coach.
Chip Kelly has been down a lot of roads as a football coach. He’s been doing this thing since 1990, working his way into the homes of football players across the nation. When he would get them back to college to play for his offense, they rarely failed to produce eye-popping numbers. It was enough to lure Bellotti to choose a fairly unknown offensive coordinator from Division I-AA New Hampshire to become one of Oregon’s most visible coaches.
After nearly two seasons of work at Oregon, it was enough to tell Bellotti that he deserved the ultimate job at Oregon – head coach. Head coach, that is, in waiting.
Before he can climb behind the steering wheel of his shiny new football program, he’ll have to wait. He says he’ll be fine to wait; I say he’d better wait at least two years. Why?
Chip Kelly has never been down this road before, that’s why. He’ll need all the experience he can get.
“The road?” Kelly responded to a reporter’s question about his unlikely journey. “Two years ago I didn’t think this would happen.”
Now it has. But so quickly?
I believe in Chip Kelly’s offense and his leadership behind that offense. He seems like a natural fit; Bellotti was an offensive coordinator with a small-college background when he was hired to direct Rich Brooks’ offense in the late 1980s. You might say he was on the road to success. He should do fine, at least Oregon fans hope.
Bellotti had no experience leading a team, either, when he was hired in 1995. But the idea of Kelly, the new kid on the block, being head coach, still doesn’t sound right. That’s because of all the flash it produces, the Oregon athletic department rarely makes a bold move like this, and it’s still a little shocking that Kelly will become head coach roughly a year and a half after he was hired, about four days after the first report about Syracuse’s interest in him.
It’s a move people saw happening in the future. And then it happened yesterday.
It could be great, whenever he takes over. The problem is that there’s no telling when that’s going to happen.
The decision now puts coaches and athletic director Pat Kilkenny in an uncomfortable lurch. Bellotti said he would feel no pressure about when to retire, but is there any question there will be questions around him every month about when he will step down?
There needs to be an agreement between Kelly and Bellotti about a timetable, and more importantly, between the assistant coaches. They’re part of this, too, their jobs on the line when Kelly takes over. Without a plan of succession with a timetable, the assistants won’t know whether to pay allegiance to Bellotti or Kelly. Bellotti hires and fires in the present, but Kelly will have his eyes toward the future.
I suppose only then, the future, is when we’ll find out how everything will shake out. Oregon officials hope they covered themselves for when that time comes and a smooth transition happens. Kelly has proven in barely two years his abilities as an offensive mastermind.
Oregon fans and players had better hope that down the road, he’s just as quick a study as head coach.
[email protected]