Chip Kelly reveals how he handled exit from UCLA with former players, staff

Chip Kelly left UCLA this offseason after six years leading the program as head coach. It was a difficult decision that left the Bruins empty-handed but, in the end, he doesn’t regret how it eventually played out.

Kelly explained his departure from Los Angeles during Ohio State’s first press conference of the spring on Tuesday. He explained how that, because he was able to look his players in the eyes and tell them, he didn’t have any remorse. He got to tell them first and, as such, he had the one thing he wanted in being able to explain his own reasoning.

“Yeah, I mean, I got an opportunity to tell my players personally,” said Kelly.

“I think in this day and age of the internet? Where they read it somewhere else and you have to text message them? That was always important to me,” Kelly said. “I wanted to make sure I talked to my players and explain the reasons of what I was doing.”

Kelly left Pasadena with a record of 35-34 (.507), including a 25-13 mark over the last three years. That tenure featured two bowl appearances in his last two seasons with a victory in the LA Bowl being his final one on their sidelines.

Now, with him gone, DeShaun Foster, an-all time running back in Bruin history, is their next leader. Kelly is happy that he was who the team ended up on too based on how he feels about Foster after having him on his staff in all of his seasons as head coach there.

“What I was happy about was I always thought, DeShaun Foster? I think the world of him. I think he’s special,” said Kelly. “The fact that they gave him the opportunity to take over there? It worked out.”

“I didn’t have any say in that decision. I was gone but I always thought that DeShaun would be a great head coach,” Kelly said. “I’m really proud of him and happy that he got the opportunity to take that job.”

Kelly just wanted to make it known that, for his career, this was the best step for him to make at this point. Since he was able to, he doesn’t have guilt or second guesses about how his time at UCLA came to an end.

“I wasn’t leaving to take a head coaching job somewhere else. I wasn’t thinking that the grass is greener at another university,” said Kelly. “It was just, in my personal situation? This was what I wanted to do. I wanted to take an opportunity to go be a position coach and coordinator.”

“That’s how it fit,” Kelly said,