How Chip Kelly Could Enhance Ohio State’s Offense

Real Pod Wednesdays

What will Chip Kelly bring to Ohio State’s offense? We called in our X’s and O’s expert to help us break it down.

Eleven Warriors football scheme analyst Kyle Jones joins us on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays for an in-depth conversation on what Ohio State’s offense could look like with Kelly calling the plays as the Buckeyes’ new offensive coordinator.

Our conversation with Jones touches on a variety of topics related to Kelly’s hiring including how he has built consistently elite rushing offenses, how he won’t be afraid to run the same play repeatedly if an opponent can’t stop it, why Kelly’s pairing with Ryan Day should be a good fit for new quarterback Will Howard and why Jones expects Ohio State’s offensive line to improve significantly in 2024 with Kelly’s help.

In the second half of the show, Dan and Andy share some additional thoughts on Kelly’s hiring and also talk briefly about Ohio State women’s basketball’s emergence as the second-best team in the country and Joey Velazquez’s transfer from Michigan to Ohio State.

The full rundown for our conversation:

• 1:00: Kyle’s favorite moment of the Bill O’Brien era was Penn State thinking it’s Ohio State’s rival
• 1:39: Chip Kelly can continue what Ryan Day already does well while allowing Day to be CEO
• 4:33: Is Kelly an upgrade over O’Brien? That depends on what you’re looking for
• 6:35: Day will likely still be spending a lot of his time with the quarterbacks
• 9:17: What Kelly does schematically to build elite rushing offenses
• 12:04: Kelly is more willing than Day to hammer the same concept if it’s working
• 13:28: Day has been the better passing coach, Kelly has been the better short-yardage coach
• 15:39: Why an NFL background was a priority for Ohio State’s offensive coordinator hire
• 18:43: Kansas State does a lot schematically, preparing Will Howard well for OSU
• 21:32: Ohio State’s offense will still be Ryan Day’s offense
• 23:43: Kelly will adapt to what his opponent is doing rather than trying to prove a specific point
• 26:32: Ohio State’s offensive line could be “much, much better” with Kelly’s coaching
• 34:14: Kelly can bring many of the same qualities Ohio State missed without Kevin Wilson last year
• 35:07: Day believes Ohio State has the pieces for a championship-caliber offensive line
• 37:31: O’Brien’s QB expertise would have been valuable, but OSU needs run game help most
• 43:43: Todd Fitch can help make up for what Kelly lacks in quarterback coaching experience
• 44:48: Day adapted impressively by replacing O’Brien with a coach who checked the same boxes
• 46:23: Kelly seems ready to just be an offensive coordinator, so dynamic with Day should work
• 49:32: Kelly can help instill the killer instinct in Ohio State’s offense that it needs in big games
• 52:44: Ohio State women’s basketball keeps getting better
• 57:41: Cross-rivalry transfers like Joey Velazquez will increase with portal proliferation