Ryan Day confident in Chip Kelly running Ohio State offense, coaching quarterbacks

Ryan Day basically handed over play calling and quarterback whispering duties over to Chip Kelly, Ohio State’s new offensive coordinator.

Day’s former boss left the head coaching job at UCLA to come to Columbus and simply coach football. Kelly, at the peak of his college football powers, was quite the innovative offensive genius and coached former Heisman winner Marcus Mariota.

Day is quite confident in Kelly running with the offense and molding it into quite the prolific style.

“Chip is coaching the quarterbacks and so much of what I learned was from him,” Day said. “We worked together in so many different areas and and then coached for him with the Eagles with the 49ers and with him. There’s just a lot of back and forth there and so there’s a lot of conversation and so I’ll still be very much involved but certainly you know, Chip is running it, he’s gonna run the meetings, he’s gonna do all those types of things. But there’s a lot of give and take there as well. A lot of conversation, but it’s a good group of quarterbacks.”

Former Kansas State quarterback Will Howard transferred in and Devin Brown is back for 2024 as well. They’re expected to be the top two options and the ones to battle it out for the QB1 role.

With Kelly working with both guys, Day sees a successful quarterback room overall.

“They’ve got really good leadership,” Day said. “They’ve had a really good offseason. I think you know, all the feedback we’re getting from Mick has been very, very positive. You know, we, I think we counted up between seven-on-seven and team reps, I think we had 150 reps today. And that’s a bunch. And that’s great because that’s what these guys need, and the more we can spread those around, the better.”

Lettermen Row’s Spencer Holbrook mentioned how Ohio State stumbled into Kelly but likely ended up with a better situation with him spearheading Day’s offense.

“Ryan Day found something that may be incredibly unique in Bill O’Brien with the NFL head coaching, college coaching, college play calling, NFL Play calling, all that experience,” Holbrook said on Andy Staples On3 in February. “There’s only one person that fit the bill even better, and it’s the guy who mentored (Day).

“And it just so convenient that Chip Kelly wanted out of UCLA so badly that he was willing to do this and take this move. And Ryan Day is not going to turn that down at all, you know, the run scheme that should Kelly has, that’s exactly what Ryan Day wants … the passing concepts with Brian Hartline married with those run concepts, Ryan Day couldn’t draw that up better.”