Report: Oregon Requests Permission to Interview UCLA's Chip Kelly for Head Coach Vacancy
The chances of the Bruins' leading man heading home are getting more and more real.
Oregon has reached out to UCLA and requested permission to speak with coach Chip Kelly regarding their open head coaching position, the Oregonian's John Canzano reported Thursday afternoon. Additional sources later confirmed the initial report to ESPN's Chris Low, who reported Oregon is "making a hard push" to bring Kelly back to Eugene.
Canzano also reported that the coaching search has "moves to make" in the next one to three days, but it seems as if the Ducks have settled on targeting someone with familiarity and ties to the program.
Kelly boasts those ties and then some, having coached in Eugene for six seasons and led the Ducks to a 46-7 record as their head coach from 2009 to 2012.
Since leaving Oregon, however, Kelly went 28-35 in the NFL then returned to the Pac-12 to go 18-25 at UCLA from 2018 to 2021. Kelly did improve the Bruins' record to 8-4 this fall, though, and most of the buzz of them firing him died down when he led the team to a 3-0 record in November and a Holiday Bowl bid over the weekend.
But just because UCLA likely isn't firing Kelly doesn't mean he'll be back in Westwood next season, as Canzano's report highlights.
Canzano first tossed Kelly's name into the mix for the Oregon job before prior head coach Mario Cristobal had even left town, pegging Kelly as possibly the top target to be his replacement on Dec. 4. When Cristobal made his move to Miami official, Kelly opened as the odds-on favorite to take his place with the Ducks.
According to Canzano, Oregon has already talked to BYU's Kalani Sitake and requested permission to speak to Cal's Justin Wilcox. It remains to be seen if UCLA will allow Kelly to interview with the Ducks, or if Kelly himself will accept the interview request. Kelly is believed to still be extremely close with key Oregon booster and Nike founder Phil Knight and former Oregon Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny, who are both very active in the current coaching search.
Kelly has also reportedly been in extension talks with UCLA heading into the final year of his contract, but those talks have apparently stalled, according to Bruin Report Online. As of Wednesday, Kelly was still out on the recruiting trail for UCLA.
Kelly's $9 million buyout that goes to zero after Jan. 15 was initially seen as a possible obstacle to firing him this fall, but now stands out as a major factor in negotiations for his next deal and could also be a sticking point in whatever happens with Oregon.
If Kelly were to accept any job offered to him by the Ducks, they would have to pay that $9 million buyout, unless the deal goes down after mid-January. Miami paid Oregon $9 million to buy out Cristobal, though, so bringing Kelly in would not result in a net loss for the program financially.
At least one-third of the conference will open next season with a new coach, with USC's Lincoln Riley, Washington's Kalen DeBoer and Washington State's Jake Dickert joining whoever steps in at Oregon.
Kelly was asked about the Washington opening in November, to which he said he had not been contacted and was happy at UCLA. However, Kelly ended his final postgame press conference of the regular season without giving a straight answer to whether or not he wanted an extension.
"I don’t need to discuss my contract with you, so I’m good," Kelly said in response to the Los Angeles Times' Ben Bolch. "I have an agent and he takes care of things and that’s the way it works, so. What’s your contract?"
Oregon is attempting to be very up front in its coaching search, according to Canzano, after the back door negotiations that plagued them during Cristobal's departure to Miami.
As a result, there may be many updates to come on this story, and these developments could start to snowball in either direction over the weekend.
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