The Eagles have a bye this weekend, close to the time when coach Chip Kelly was used to wrapping up regular seasons at Oregon.
But Kelly said this week there’s no way he’d trade another five weeks of regular season for the “break” that usually came before he’d take the Ducks to a bowl game in January.
“My schedule, the day the season was over, was a lot worse than my schedule here because you’re planes, trains and automobiles recruiting from Sunday night until Friday afternoon and hustling back and practicing, getting a practice in Friday afternoon, practice Saturday, practice Sunday, get back on a plane and fly around the country chasing down recruits,” he said, via Sheil Kapadia of PhillyMag.com. “Maybe a misconception is when you’re a college coach and the last game is done and then the bowl game comes, you don’t have a month off. I would argue my schedule was more hectic from a recruiting standpoint than it was here.
“So I’m looking forward to being in the office every day and watching tape. That is the fun part of our job.”
Kelly would rather be drawing Xs and Os or researching ways to make his team better than criss-crossing the country convincing teenagers to wear a dozen different uniforms a year.
While many college coaches have failed miserably making the transition, his preference for the football could be the thing that enables him to succeed where so many of his brethren have failed.