When Bobby Petrino made the jump from college to the Atlanta Falcons, he left after less than one season to return to the collegiate ranks to become the head coach at Arkansas.
Chip Kelly is not planning to follow in Petrino’s footsteps. Lane Kiffin’s firing has opened up the coaching job at USC and that’s led some to put Kelly’s name on a list of candidates. The Eagles coach said he didn’t want to talk hypotheticals when asked Thursday about his response should the Trojans come calling, but eventually came up with a stronger response.
“I’m the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles,” Kelly said, via Geoff Mosher of CSNPhilly.com. “I’m very, very excited to be here. I’m not entertaining anything like that. I’m here.”
As Dolphins fans likely remember from the Nick Saban days, coaches have a way of changing their minds when a high-profile gig opens up so one should never say never. This case is a bit different, though, because Kelly was slapped with an 18-month show cause penalty by the NCAA in January as part of their punishment of the Oregon program for infractions while Kelly was their coach. The penalty means that the other infractions assessed to Oregon would follow to another school unless they could convince the NCAA why they shouldn’t apply.
USC just finished serving probation and dealing with the loss of scholarships for infractions committed while Pete Carroll was the coach and it’s hard to imagine they’d have much desire to go back to them if they’re looking to win in the near future. Throw that on top of Kelly’s comments and there’s reason to think that Kelly won’t be going the same way as Saban and Petrino.