Chip Kelly was interested in becoming the next head football coach at Harvard before leaving UCLA to take a pay cut and demotion at Ohio State. That is a true sentence in real life.
The Bruins almost fired Kelly back in November after one of the worst tenures as head coach in program history. They decided to give him one more year to get things figured out.
However, the 60-year-old saw the writing on the wall and chose to get out while he could. Kelly left his role as a head coach in the Big Ten to become the offensive coordinator at a different Big Ten program for about $4 million less. It was a surprising decision that not only made look UCLA look very dumb, but reflects the current reality of college football in a world where NIL and the transfer portal exist.
Kelly wanted out. Period.
He interviewed with the Seattle Seahawks for their offensive coordinator position. He ultimately took the job at Ohio State.
Another surprising suitor was also in the mix!
Chip Kelly to the Ivy League?!
Harvard head coach Tim Murphy became the winningest coach in Ivy League history over 30 years with the program. He retired on Jan. 17.
As a result, the Crimson had to embark on a head coaching search that ultimately concluded with Rutgers tight ends coach Andrew Aurich getting the job. That did not go over well with a large portion of the alumni base. Dozens of former players wrote letters to the university. Many threatened to withhold future donations.
It is quite the debacle in Cambridge.
And Chip Kelly was one of the candidates who was passed over without so much as an interview! According to Laine Higgins of the Wall Street Journal, there was mutual interest.
Neil Gilman, who played for the Crimson in the 1970s, texted Kelly about the job. The former told the latter that “his brilliant football mind would be appreciated in a place like Cambridge.” The latter told the former that he was interested in the job.
Harvard did not even reach out in a formal capacity.