Patrick Csiszar |
Currently, UCLA football is not in a good state, to say the least. The Bruins from the outside look like they are a decent, slightly above-average college football team after coming off an 8-5 season with coach Chip Kelly while having their third straight 8+ win season. But, those stats can be deceiving because UCLA had a very easy PAC-12 schedule this year with not playing either Oregon or Washington and has also played multiple FCS teams over the past couple of years. Embarrassing losses at home to Cal and Arizona State left sour tastes in many Bruins fans’s mouths. Combine that with a head coach like Chip Kelly refusing to recruit, and tap into the sleeping giant of NIL that is UCLA, and it is clear to see why UCLA fans think their football program is in a complete downward spiral and head coach Chip Kelly needs to be fired.
Chip Kelly is not the guy for UCLA football right now and he is not the guy for any college football program that wants to be successful (as a head coach). Chip Kelly has single-handedly made UCLA fans and the Athletic Department settle for mediocrity. After going a combined 10-21 after his first three seasons, new UCLA Athletic Director Martin Jarmond decided to keep Chip Kelly. That did pay off for the next two seasons as UCLA went 17-8, but to many UCLA fans, that is expected for Bruin football. UCLA and Kelly were mainly led by star quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson and powerful running back Zach Charbonnet in Chip’s first two winning seasons. But, this past season UCLA would be without both as they were off to the NFL. Kelly did have some momentum and excitement going into this year though as they brought in young NFL-assistant D’Anton Lynn as their new defensive coordinator. For all of Kelly’s years, his problem was not his offense, it was his horrific defenses. Now with a new face handling the defense, there was hope. Along with their new DC, Kelly was able to bring in his first five-star recruit to UCLA, quarterback Dante Moore. Chip added solid transfers to fill holes on both sides of the ball, and they only had one position to figure out, quarterback. Nevertheless, UCLA looked exciting going into the 2023-2024 season. The Bruins had a mediocre season, going 8-5, but it did not feel like a good season because of how easy the schedule was and the losses UCLA had. Chip Kelly, the great mastermind he is, somehow managed to lose a game at home against a team without a quarterback. I am being completely serious. UCLA lost to Arizona State at home 17-7. Kelly apparently could not come up with an answer for ASU’s defense which allowed 60 points the week before. He also was not able to stop ASU’s starting running Cam Skattebo and tight end Jalin Conyers as they made winning plays at both quarterback and their respective positions. After that loss, it should have been clear, that Chip Kelly should not be the head coach of UCLA football. No quality coach loses that football game. AD Martin Jarmond was in a tough situation, knowing that next year the Bruins would be entering the BIG Ten Conference with better competition. At that moment, Jarmond was making moves looking like he was going to pull the trigger on Kelly, but then he didn’t. Suddenly, UCLA mega-donor Casey Wasserman had written an opinion piece in the local paper calling the firing of Chip Kelly a mistake and ludicrous. All of a sudden, the efforts by the administration to fire Kelly were put on hold and Chip remained coach. UCLA then went on to beat an overrated USC team and it looked like UCLA had made the right decision. You could not be more incorrect if you tried as what has happened over the past two to three months to make Casey Wasserman and Martin Jarmond look like complete idiots. After UCLA beat USC and kept Kelly, they were blown out at home to Cal in an embarrassing fashion, and that was only the start of UCLA’s downfall. As they were waiting to play their second bowl game under Chip Kelly, archrival USC poached rising star defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn from the Bruins to be their co-defensive coordinator. Everyone knows that someone taking a demotion to your rival is not a good look, yet it seemed with the administration that they were unable to keep Lynn at UCLA. Kelly finished the year with a decent win over Boise State in the LA Bowl, but place whatever value you want on that because bowl games don’t mean anything anymore.
Next, came the offseason with the transfer portal, recruiting next year's class, and using UCLA’s great NIL funds, where Chip Kelly started to cook. That was ironic. That brings us to another point as to why Chip is not the right guy for UCLA, at all. He does not recruit at all. Since the year he took over at UCLA, Chip Kelly has employed a bizarre and unexplainable strategy for recruiting. Kelly has been extremely selective while recruiting at UCLA and seems to put the minimum amount of effort required to recruit high school kids or even transfers. Even when athletes are on visits at UCLA, there are accounts of Kelly being on campus and watching the film instead of being with the recruits and recruiting them. With Kelly, UCLA has settled for 3 stars and a couple of 4 stars every year. UCLA is an attractive university and can recruit nationally as it has done under every single head coach at UCLA. In the past couple of seasons though, Kelly has emphasized the transfer portal instead of recruiting high school athletes. This has paid off with the additions of the likes of Laiatu Latu, Zach Charbonnet, and the Murphy twins. But, this year, NIL is finally playing a factor in recruiting, and unfortunately for UCLA, Chip Kelly has no interest in pleasing donors and interacting with them to attract more donations for NIL. Because of this, UCLA has lacked the funds to attract top players and has lost major recruiting battles to smaller schools because they did not have more money for the players. Insufficient NIL funding because of Kelly and his lack of effort into recruiting high school athletes has led UCLA to have its worst recruiting class of all time this year (since websites started ranking classes). With the resources at Chip’s disposal, to be out-recruited by schools like Kansas, Vanderbilt, Washington State, BYU, and Cincinnati is flat-out embarrassing and unacceptable. Kelly can keep bragging about his “books and ball” mantra, but it is not working on the recruiting front because academic powerhouses like Stanford, Vanderbilt, and Michigan have done better consistently than UCLA since Kelly took over.
UCLA should be done with Chip Kelly, but it looks like Chip is already done with UCLA. During this offseason in the past month, Kelly and his team have been reaching out to NFL teams and even some other college football teams to be their offensive coordinator. He was rumored to be a package deal with Dan Quinn to the Commanders; they ultimately chose Kliff Kingsbury. He reached out to the Raiders; they declined and went another way. Chip even reached out to Iowa to be their offensive coordinator. Kelly wants a demotion if it means he is out at UCLA. Chip Kelly wants out at UCLA, but for some reason, Martin Jarmond and UCLA have ultimately decided that Kelly is still the right guy for the Bruins. Kelly will go 5-7 next year in the Bruins’s first year in the BIG Ten; he will be fired and replaced, and the 2024 season will be a waste for UCLA because of the simple fact that Chip Kelly should have been gone last year after the loss to Arizona State. The situation around UCLA football and Chip Kelly comes down to Martin Jarmond. He didn’t have the guts to make the call and stand by his decision to fire Kelly. If he did fire Kelly after the ASU loss, two of the best candidates in the coaching carousel this year had serious interest in UCLA. Arizona head coach, Jedd Fisch, who took a program from 1-11 to 10-3 in the span of 3 seasons, has connections to UCLA, and wanted the job. Arizona administrators were even expecting him to take the job when there were false reports of Chip Kelly’s firing. The other coaching candidate who had a serious interest in UCLA and my personal favorite choice was Jonathan Smith. He completely rebuilt the Oregon State football team and transformed them into a tough, gritty team on both sides of the ball. Also, Smith is a Pasadena native, and you can imagine a kid from Pasadena’s dream would be coaching home games at the Rose Bowl. But, unfortunately for the UCLA program and its fans, Jarmond stuck with Chip Kelly, and told the fans to “read the room”.
Even with all his problems on and off the field Chip Kelly, will still be UCLA’s head coach and lead the blue and gold in the fall in 2024. Chip Kelly and the Bruins will have a below-average season next year as they enter BIG Ten play for the first time. You could say this is a make-or-break season for Kelly, but it is already pretty much broken before the spring practices have even started.
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