The UCLA Bruins Hire Chip Kelly as Their New Football Coach

Chip Kelly is back in college football where he belongs.

After a brief experiment with the NFL, Kelly has signed on to become UCLA’s next head coach, agreeing to deal that is worth $23 million over the next five years. UCLA fans should be ecstatic. Kelly was one of the most innovative offensive minds in the sport and teams need to be able to score 40 the way Kelly did consistently at Oregon in order to win the national championship.

Kelly is UCLA’s biggest hire since Terry Donahue. He turned down Florida for the chance to coach in Westwood was a home run hire for a team that has not won the Pac-12 since 1988.  Kelly’s success at Oregon speaks volumes for his ability to thrive in this league. He has four straight seasons with double figure wins at Oregon and was 46-7 from 2009-2012 before he left for the NFL where he coaches the Philadelphia Eagles and 49’ers. He was a disaster at both spots because he couldn’t decide on skill position personnel and teams played limited defense.

But we’re predicting he will challenge legendary USC in the city before long.

Despite the fact that former UCLA coach Jim Mora squandered Josh Rosen’s talents the last three years, the So Cal area, and Orange County in particular is filled with great skill position prospects.

Recently, the league has been dominated by Oregon and Stanford. But Kelly could be a better football mind than Washington’s Chris Petersen and Stanford’s David Shaw. The fact he wanted to stay on the West Coast and out of SEC politics is a plus, too. Kelly is all football. He has not interest in the Hollywood glitz and glamor that accompanied past UCLA coaches. It should be fun to watch the Bruins play at Oregon and traditional rival USC with his high scoring, up tempo offense.