Let it never be said that Chip Kelly isn’t ready to give literally everything for football – even his life.
In a recent interview, the newly-minted Ohio State offensive coordinator and former head coach made it clear that he has “never” thought about quitting football or not coaching at least somewhere. He declared that he’s going to keep coaching until he dies if possible.
“I never thought about quitting or not coaching. I’m gonna coach and then I’m gonna die,” Kelly said, via Tony Gerdeman of Buckeye Huddle.
Kelly recently left his position as UCLA head coach to become the offensive coordinator for the Buckeyes. It was a surprising move given that he willingly accepted a demotion in rank in order to leave his current position.
Kelly has been a head coach in either college football or the NFL in all but one year since 2009. The last time he was an offensive coordinator was at Oregon back in 2008.
But Kelly just hasn’t been able to recapture the magic at UCLA that he found at Oregon, or even in his early years with the Philadelphia Eagles. And with the opportunity to reunite with his former longtime colleague Ryan Day at Ohio State (and likely at a very similar pay rate), it was too good of an option to pass up.
Kelly certainly won’t be a popular man in Southern California for a long time after leaving the team in the rearview mirror mere months before their high-profile transition to the Big Ten Conference.
We won’t know what kind of welcome he’d receive there until 2028 though.