Fortuna Files: News and notes from around the carousel
Ohio State, Alabama, Notre Dame, Oklahoma and more are making moves.
I hear it’s Super Bowl week. Is that so?
1. Chip Kelly is off to the NFL, this time to become an offensive coordinator with the Las Vegas Raiders. Per SI’s Albert Breer, Kelly will be making an average of $6 million per year to call the plays in Sin City. To put that into context, the salary is on par with what Kelly was making during his final year as UCLA’s head coach, and three times what he made this past season as Ohio State’s OC. It is also more than what all but 35 FBS head coaches made this past season.
2. Kelly has always been ahead of the curve, be it with spread offenses, sports science or even his general view of where college football has been headed. Yet no one may have made a better bet on himself than Kelly did when he gave up a head-coaching job at UCLA to become Ohio State’s OC after the 2023 season. The execution itself was clumsy, but Kelly got himself a national title in Columbus this past season and is now being paid the same as he was at UCLA, minus the cost-of-living in L.A. and minus all of the headaches that come with being a college head coach.
3. It was no secret that Kelly and UCLA were not exactly enamored with each other toward the end, but the Bruins didn’t have the money to buy him out, and in the end they didn’t have to.
4. Now what for Ohio State? The Buckeyes are down their offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator and offensive line coach. Justin Frye left Saturday to become the Arizona Cardinals’ O-line coach, one week after Jim Knowles left to become Penn State’s DC. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ryan Day looked to the NFL to fill most of the staff holes, given how late we already are in the coaching cycle. Michigan State’s Joe Rossi and Kentucky’s Brad White are probably the two biggest names out there among available college DCs, but we’ll see which way Day decides to go.