A Further Thought on Chip Kelly's Future

It's a buzzkill to contemplate it one short week before the greatest moment in Oregon football history, but Chip Kelly will be a success anywhere he chooses to go. His brand of innovation, energy and vision would succeed at any level and any program. If he wanted he could go to UConn and become the Joe Paterno of New England. If he became tempted by the money and the challenge he could take the 49er job, and in three to four years he would restore that organization to the glory years of Bill Walsh and George Seifert (Seifert, ironically enough, a former Duck assistant).

Already some of the brightest and most accomplished minds in coaching, including Tony Dungy, Jon Gruden and Chris Peterson, flock to Oregon to study what Kelly has put in place here. He has the full attention of the football world. With a couple of phone calls and an agreement to get on a plane, Kelly could be on the short list for any football job you could name.

Or, he could stay at Oregon, and make it a cradle of coaches and an empire of excellence. He'd inspire two decades of athletes that would amass a trophy case full of awards and highlights and achievements, ten and twelve-win seasons, Rose Bowls, BCS Championships, Heismans, All-Americas. His players would go on to be fabulous successes at the next level of football, or in the courtrooms, classrooms, boardrooms, and community programs. It would be a rich legacy, and a satisfying one to contemplate and behold.

The Paternos and Bobby Bowdens are a rarity in college football. There are no more than 15-20 coaches whose images and voices and profiles become a part of their institutions, a touchstone and a legend and a myth. Longevity accompanies a special kind of accomplishment, and it's less and less common in a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately kind of world.

Oregon fans will love Kelly while he's here, and can only hope he comes to love Oregon as much.

Kelly, of course, wouldn't entertain a question like this. He gives a quick rebut to anything in this direction. The one thing that might hold him here is his loyalty and affection for his players. Having seen Drew Davis and Nate Costa through four years, you have to think he'd feel a powerful motivation to provide the same continuity of purpose for Josh Huff, Darron Thomas and Eric Dungy. Athletes move on and so do coaches, but in observing Kelly, it seems to be the relationships inside the circle that motivate him most.

There are many things that make Oregon a special place. Chip Kelly has become one of them, and we can only hope the challenges and rewards are great enough to keep him here a long while.