2022 Pac 12 Thread

[CatsbyAZ]

Let’s start the Pac 12 offseason with the idiocy of Chip Kelly and UCLA. First, the Bruins backed out of playing in the Holiday Bowl with no warning just hours before kickoff, bucking Chip Kelly’s promise the day before: “If someone comes down with symptoms later on this afternoon they will get tested. We will test kids up until game time. We have our fingers crossed... our mindset is if we have 11 we will play.”

The eager conspiracy theory here is that Chip Kelly was more than happy to end up not playing North Carolina State because in his four seasons at UCLA, the Bruins have yet to beat a team that finishes the season with a winning record. A loss to ranked North Carolina State would’ve dropped UCLA to 8-5 and damaged the goodwill built up not only by three straight wins to end the regular season, but in notching UCLA’s first winning season since Chip Kelly took helm.

Chip Kelly needs this goodwill because as of now UCLA and Chip Kelly have yet to agree on terms to a necessary contract extension.

From FootballScoop.com: “On top of all this, the Kelly tenure is at a point where it really could go either way. On the one hand, Kelly is 18-25 (16-18 Pac-12) -- a far cry from the days when Kelly ran the Pac-10 at Oregon. On the other, Kelly's 2021 season was his best in Westwood thus far. The Bruins went 8-4 and won their final three games. Is that enough to sign Kelly to a massive new deal? Probably not. Is that enough to simply let him go? No, it's not.”


https://twitter.com/zach_barnett/status/1476970231700541440

[ELA]

The older he gets, the weirder it is that he goes by Chip

[rolltidefan]

The older he gets, the weirder it is that he goes by Chip

i have clients that are rural farmers in alabama. it's so weird to me everytime when i talk to them and a 70+ man is named chip or bubba or something. we got several of them though.

[Brutus Buckeye]

I've gone by my middle name all my life, and decided to take the first name for a test drive at my current job. So when someone calls out my name it sometimes takes a moment to realize that they are talking to me. So if he's always gone by Chip I can kind of see why he would keep it. 

[CatsbyAZ]

Odds are Chip Kelly will coach next year, but if UCLA dumps him it won’t be until after January 15th, when his buyout is set to drop from $9M to $0. By then it’s too late in the Coaching change cycle to hire anything other than leftovers. Without some kind of extension, Chip Kelly could walk away insulted or be the only coach in quite some time to coach through the last year of his contract, given the risk of negative recruiting.

With home attendance and fan interest way down and the local media market moving on from UCLA, especially now that USC has hired Lincoln Riley, I’m convinced Chip Kelly recognized he could skate by with mediocrity for quite a while before UCLA ran him off. Which is why avoiding the Florida job and their more demanding fans and conference scheduling was smart.

Barely winning seasons were all Chip Kelly needed to drag along his seven figure job that also employed his deadbeat friends, like DC Jerry Azzinaro, who in no way would’ve lasted at Florida.

As it stands UCLA has pretty much scheduled themselves a winning season next year starting with three home games Vs Bowling Green, Alabama State, and South Alabama, all before needing to find only three more win in the weakest P5 conference.

[CatsbyAZ]

I’m starting to think the Washington Huskies will have another down season made worse due to a sharp wave of roster hemorrhaging. Under their new coach, Kalen DeBoer (hired from Fresno State), a half a dozen would-be returning starters have fled to the transfer portal since Coach DeBoer’s November 29th hiring, with several already finding landing spots at rivals UCLA and USC. Another starter, DT Taimani, is expected to transfer to rival Oregon.

Those transfers are on top of four Husky underclassman declaring for the NFL, three of whom are starting defensive backs.

However, what’s widely viewed as the most painful defection isn’t even a transfer. It’s the one-two punch of losing WR Coach Junior Adams to Oregon and by consequence losing the gem of their 2022 signing class, WR Germie Bernard to Michigan State after the Las Vegas native requested a release from his letter of intent to Washington. A big pickup for Mel Tucker.


https://twitter.com/StoneLarry/status/1478887531710062592

[ELA]

I’m starting to think the Washington Huskies will have another down season made worse due to a sharp wave of roster hemorrhaging. Under their new coach, Kalen DeBoer (hired from Fresno State), a half a dozen would-be returning starters have fled to the transfer portal since Coach DeBoer’s November 29th hiring, with several already finding landing spots at rivals UCLA and USC. Another starter, DT Taimani, is expected to transfer to rival Oregon.

Those transfers are on top of four Husky underclassman declaring for the NFL, three of whom are starting defensive backs.

However, what’s widely viewed as the most painful defection isn’t even a transfer. It’s the one-two punch of losing WR Coach Junior Adams to Oregon and by consequence losing the gem of their 2022 signing class, WR Germie Bernard to Michigan State after the Las Vegas native requested a release from his letter of intent to Washington. A big pickup for Mel Tucker.


https://twitter.com/StoneLarry/status/1478887531710062592

And we travel out to Seattle next September

[betarhoalphadelta]

So what's the back story here? 

Obviously a coaching change can spur transfers, that makes sense. Especially for recruits, when the coach that recruited them is fired or chooses to leave to go somewhere else they might leave to follow that coach (or in this WR case, maybe go to their 2nd-choice school instead). And I can understand leaving UW to go to USC with their new coaching staff getting a lot of hype... But leaving UW to go to Chip Kelly at UCLA? With rumblings about his future there? Especially if you're already a starter or presumptive starter at UW? UCLA seems like jumping off the Titanic and landing on the Lusitania.

I don't even remember the name of UW's departing coach, and I don't know anything about DeBoer and his system... So maybe it's a style-of-play thing where the transfers out believe they don't have a spot in DeBoer's system? But I've never heard anything bad about DeBoer, and would find it odd if a new incoming coach just started rubbing half the starting lineup in completely the wrong way and lost the locker room before he'd ever coached a down. So I can't see why starters / presumptive starters would jump ship...

[CatsbyAZ]

So what's the back story here?

The minor exodus playing out in Seattle is likely overdue from the brief, abruptly ended Jimmy Lake era. Those transferring were likely already leaving whether Jimmy Lake was retained or not. Combine the season ending along with the new hire failing to unexpectedly change the minds of players with one foot already out the door, and here we are. DeBoer likely needs two seasons to stabilize the Husky roster.

Stay tuned for more Chip Kelly news soon expected from UCLA.

[Cincydawg]

I'm interested in Oregon for some reason.

[betarhoalphadelta]

Stay tuned for more Chip Kelly news soon expected from UCLA.

Ahh yeah, I forgot about his buyout dropping to zero tomorrow. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

4 year extension for Kelly.

[bayareabadger]

So what's the back story here?

...

But leaving UW to go to Chip Kelly at UCLA? With rumblings about his future there? Especially if you're already a starter or presumptive starter at UW? UCLA seems like jumping off the Titanic and landing on the Lusitania.

I don't even remember the name of UW's departing coach, and I don't know anything about DeBoer and his system... So maybe it's a style-of-play thing where the transfers out believe they don't have a spot in DeBoer's system? But I've never heard anything bad about DeBoer, and would find it odd if a new incoming coach just started rubbing half the starting lineup in completely the wrong way and lost the locker room before he'd ever coached a down. So I can't see why starters / presumptive starters would jump ship...

The kid going to UCLA was medicaled off the roster in the spring. So he couldn't play for them even if he wanted to. 

[CatsbyAZ]

4 year extension for Kelly.

For context, UCLA’s beleaguered DC, Jerry Azzinaro “resigned” prior to Chip Kelly’s contract extension terms were settled. Thinking UCLA’s AD made it an unwritten condition of extension that Chip Kelly rid the program of his longtime, underperforming drinking buddy:

“Jerry Azzinaro has resigned as UCLA football’s defensice coordinator after four years in the position, Bruin Report Online reported (https://www.si.com/college/ucla/football/reports-ucla-defensive-coordinator-jerry-azzinaro-resigns). Azzinaro has headed up the Bruins’ defense ever since coach Chip Kelly arrived prior to the 2018 season, and Kelly hasn’t coached without him since 2008.

“UCLA ranked No. 104, No. 116, No. 103 and No. 73 in scoring defense across Azzinaro’s four seasons. Even when the Bruins improved to 8-4 in 2021, they did so despite the defense regressing from 66th to 79th in the country in points allowed per drive.”

In related news, several outlets confirmed Panther’s Coach Matt Rhule had sent out “feelers” to gauge Chip Kelly’s potential interest in taking the Carolina’s open OC spot.



https://twitter.com/ThePanthersWire/status/1483666262576222215