'I want to be happy': Chip Kelly explains why he became Ohio State's offensive coordinator

Before UCLA’s LA Bowl game in December, Bruins quarterbacks coach Ryan Gunderson left to become Oregon State’s offensive coordinator.

By necessity, head coach Chip Kelly took over the quarterback position group during bowl preparation. He loved it. He’d been a head coach in college and the NFL for so long that he didn’t realize how much enjoyed getting into the nitty gritty of working intensely with players.

“I hadn’t actually coached a position since 2008,” Kelly said Tuesday in his first press conference since becoming Ohio State’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. “My wife remarked, ‘I haven’t seen you this happy in a long time.’ To me, the best part of football is football, and so you got to do football and not do some of the things that are involved with the head coaching deal.”

After the bowl game, Kelly realized that if the right assistant coach opportunity presented itself, he’d consider it. When Bill O’Brien left to become head coach at Boston College soon after taking the OSU offensive coordinator job, the opportunity arose.

After all, Ohio State coach Ryan Day was Kelly’s protégé. They are both Manchester, New Hampshire, natives. Kelly recruited and coached Day when Day was the University of New Hampshire quarterback. Day was Kelly’s quarterbacks coach with the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers.

Still, it is unusual for a head coach at a program such as UCLA to take a step down the coaching ladder voluntarily.

“Sometimes I do a lot of things other people don’t do,” Kelly said with a chuckle. “I don’t know if that’s right or wrong.”

Kelly, 60, said a head coach in this college football era must be more of a CEO who must increasingly deal with off-field issues.

He then told a story about John Lennon. When the future Beatle was a boy, Kelly said, he had a school assignment that asked what he wanted to be when he grew up.

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“He said, ‘I want to be happy,’ ” Kelly said. “His teacher said, ‘I don’t think you understand the assignment,’ and his mom said, ‘I don’t think you understand life.’

“I just want to be happy, and I’m really happy coaching a position and really happy to be at this place.”

After Ohio State’s offense underachieved last year, scoring 14 points fewer per game than in 2022, the pressure is on Kelly. He was an offensive innovator at Oregon with his fast-tempo offense. Now it’s his charge to find a way to get Ohio State’s offense humming again.

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“I’ve always subscribed to (the idea) pressure is what you feel when you don’t know what you’re doing,” Kelly said. “If you don’t want to feel pressure, then you should know what you’re doing.”

As for the role reversal of Day being his boss, Kelly had a quick joke.

“He makes me call him, ‘Sir,’ ” he quipped. “He said, ‘Can you do that Day 1?’ and I was like, ‘All right, Ry.’ ”

Kelly said he understands his role.

“I’m not Al Haig,” he said, referring to the Reagan cabinet official who asserted that he was in charge after the 1981 assassination attempt on the president. “I’m not in charge. I actually kind of relish it because I love the scheming part. I love the individual part. I love being in the meeting room with the quarterbacks, trying to game plan. But everything we do here is collaborative.”

Day said he doesn’t consider himself the boss over Kelly.

“When I played for him or worked under him, we worked together,” Day said. “I don’t look at it like he works for me. He works with me. That’s just the way it’s always been. I love him and have for a long time.”

They are close friends, and that matters. But Day hired Kelly to win a championship.

“We both want to reach a goal just like everybody else,” Day said. “We’re fortunate to be around such a great program that has unbelievable tradition at a place where we have what’s in place to reach our goals next year. That’s what fires us both up, just like everybody on the staff as well.”

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Chip Kelly explains why he went to Ohio State as offensive coordinator