New offensive coordinator Chip Kelly sees Northwestern as an up-and-coming program

EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) — Chip Kelly led the Oregon football program to some of its greatest success, was a head coach in the NFL and was part of a staff that guided Ohio State to a national championship.

He has a history of overseeing explosive offenses at the college and pro levels. And he’ll try to do it again as Northwestern’s offensive coordinator.

“As I looked through everything, this was a situation that you got excited about,” Kelly, who was hired in December, said Wednesday. “You’re excited about moving into a new stadium. You’re excited about an up-and-coming team, and I think the landscape of college football has changed, as everybody knows. It’s a chance to start with a really good program with really good people, and that’s what it was about. I wanted to be around really good people, and everything that I’ve experienced since I’ve been there has kind of really made me feel that that was the right decision.”

Kelly was looking to get back to work after being fired as the Las Vegas Raiders’ offensive coordinator last November, just 11 games into his tenure. He didn’t have strong ties to Northwestern coach David Braun, but he had a connection to athletic director Mark Jackson through Pete Carroll. Jackson worked as an assistant coach on Carroll’s staff with the New England Patriots and was as an administrator at Southern California when the football team dominated under Carroll’s leadership.

“The coaching fraternity is really small, so very easy to get intel on anybody,” Kelly said.

The Wildcats have gone 19-19 in three seasons under Braun. They went 7-6 last year and beat Central Michigan in the GameAbove Sports Bowl.

Northwestern is set to move into a new stadium this season, with the first game to be held under Friday night lights when the Wildcats host Penn State on Oct. 2. For the past two seasons, Northwestern has played at a temporary lakefront stadium and at Wrigley Field while a new Ryan Field was constructed on the site of the old one.

Without the new stadium, Braun has said he doesn’t think Northwestern would have landed Kelly.

“At the end of the day, I think it’s really easy to look at Chip’s experience and say, absolutely without a doubt, the right person to be leading our offense,” Braun said Wednesday. “But just like Chip alluded to, it was about making sure that this was the right partnership. It does come down to people.”

Kelly led Oregon to a 46-7 record and a national championship game appearance from 2009 to 2012 before spending four years as an NFL head coach — three with Philadelphia and one with San Francisco. He returned to the college ranks as UCLA’s coach from 2018-23, leading the Bruins to a 35-34 record. He was offensive coordinator at Ohio State under Ryan Day in 2024, helping the Buckeyes win the national championship.

Kelly was the highest-profile assistant hired by Carroll in his first season in Las Vegas after a 14-year run leading the Seattle Seahawks. But the Raiders’ offense ranked among the NFL’s worst when Kelly was fired.

“You can learn really valuable lessons from wherever you’ve been, and I think that’s always part of my growth as a coach,” Kelly said. “Every day, you’re learning new things. And I think the chance to be around people, you can learn a lot of really good things. I think Pete’s a Hall of Fame coach, one of the most positive human beings I’ve ever been around. His learned optimism and how he approaches things on a daily basis was a great thing to experience while I was there. I looked at any opportunity I’ve ever had coaching as a chance to get better. And if it’s a chance to get better, then I was excited about it.” ___

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