UCLA Football: Bruins Make Stunning Decision On Chip Kelly's Coaching Future
After dropping your UCLA Bruins' regular season finale against, Cal 33-7, in an utterly dispiriting performance, things looked pretty ominous for sixth-year UCLA head coach Chip Kelly, who with the defeat has fallen to an all-time 34-34 record with the Bruins (7-5 this season).
Though he and defensive coordinator D'Anton Lynn, hired away from a gig as the safeties coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens in February 2023, helped guide the Blue and Gold to one of the best defenses in college football, Kelly's issues recruiting on offense came back to haunt him and the program at large.
Though UCLA alum Dorian Thompson-Robinson is now a (fill-in) starter for the Cleveland Browns, Kelly struggled to find a quality DTR replacement at quarterback all season, toggling between junior Ethan Garbers (under whom they went 4-2) and true freshman Dante Moore (3-2), with Collin Schlee subbing in for one game (0-1) when both were hurt.
Kelly has led UCLA's football program to a record north of .500 -- and a subsequent bowl game -- just three times in his six seasons.
Sources inform Tracy Pierson of Bruin Report Online that Kelly will stick around for a seventh season in Westwood, after all.
Pierson notes that, following an upset 17-7 loss earlier this month to the sub-.500 Arizona State University Sun Devils, after which Kelly even conceded he was ill-prepared, it had seemed like his days at the Rose Bowl would be numbered.
Was Kelly's job essentially salvaged by a totally dominant 38-20 demolition over the club's longtime crosstown Pac-12 rival USC Trojans last week? That certainly appears to be possible.
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