After 26 wins and one NFC East title in three seasons, the Philadelphia Eagles have fired Chip Kelly. For more on why it happened and what it means, allow me to direct you to our friends at ProFootballTalk.
But now, for the one question that truly matters: does this mean he’ll be back in college football?
Maybe, maybe not. But it definitely won’t happen immediately.
The FBS job market at the moment resembles the Wal-Mart TV aisle at 5 p.m. on Black Friday, with only Ball State and Texas State open.
That could change, though. In their infinite wisdom, athletics directors can usually be counted on to turn at least one disappointing bowl loss into a surprise firing (Auburn? Texas A&M?). And we can count on one NFL team trying its hand at hiring a college coach (UCLA? Notre Dame?). In the event either or both happen, Kelly’s representatives will receive a call in a De’Anthony Thomas footstep.
Of course, there is the issue of whether the man in question would even want to return to college football. He is said to have not enjoyed recruiting or the dog-and-pony show that comes with appeasing the egos of 16-year-old running backs and 56-year-old boosters. If Kelly is determined to stay in the NFL, the Tennessee Titans and their rookie quarterback Marcus Mariota represent an opportunity that makes too much sense not to happen.
But in the event the NFL views Kelly as too radioactive to hire immediately after the Eagles dumped him and no college vacancy pops open in January that tickles his fancy, brace yourself for an 11-month courting where programs that considered firing their coaches in 2015 but didn’t (LSU? Texas?) and those with reason to become unhappy with their coach (USC?) to line up for the opportunity to pay the former Oregon coach in the neighborhood of $7 million a year to lead their team.
Which, in turn, would then ramp up another round of speculation of when Kelly inevitably returns to the NFL. And ‘round and ‘round we go.