Chip Kelly's Oregon Comeback Nearly Storybook Perfect

EUGENE, Ore. -- Those football coaches who at least make an attempt at opening a book whose primary letters are not X and O often reach for biographies. Famous military leaders are popular.

Earlier this season Chip Kelly was reading, even committing to memory, a children's book. On the coffee table in his office here, the first-year Oregon coach kept a copy of "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."

Certainly Kelly can relate. In his sideline debut Kelly, 45, had a terrible, horrible, no good, cable-news-channel-attention-getting, very, very bad day.

And he has not had one since. But we are getting ahead of the story.

Thursday night, Sept. 3, Boise, Idaho. There, Kelly endured the most disastrous first day on the job anyone has experienced before a prime-time, national television audience since Lucy and Ethel tried to wrap chocolates on a conveyor belt. That Kelly had never been a head football coach at any level and that Boise State had won 50 of its previous 51 home games only augmented the curiosity factor. Would the man whom current athletic director Mike Bellotti handpicked to be his successor be a success or not?

At halftime the Ducks still had not scored a point. They had yet to even gain a first down -- and Kelly's area of expertise was supposedly offense. In the moments after the 19-8 Duck loss, on a night in which players from both teams had met at midfield before the coin toss to partake in a handshake to demonstrate sportsmanship, Duck tailback LeGarrette Blount sucker-punched Boise State defensive end Byron Hout .

After only 60 minutes, Kelly had failed to demonstrate that he could put a competitive team on the field or that he had command of his team. The Blount incident, which has been replayed more frequently this season than even Tim Tebow's concussion, was particularly ugly.

The following week, Oregon alumnus Anthony Seminary, '96, e-mailed Kelly (which anyone can do; Kelly's e-mail address is right there on Oregon's athletic site on his bio page) to express his displeasure. "I was so angry with the game [even before the post-game melee]," Seminary, who lives in Portland, wrote, "I am sending you an invoice for my trip to Boise. The product on the field Thursday night is not something I was at all proud of, and I feel as though I'm entitled to my money back for the trip."

Seminary included an invoice for $439. Kelly's reply was succinct. "What's your address?" By week's end Seminary was holding a check for $439 from one Charles Kelly.

The transformation has been incredible. In eight weeks, Kelly has gone from a guy who seemed to be in utterly over his head on opening night to a coach who has done nothing but win games and admirers.

Winning games helps, certainly. Since the Boise State debacle the Ducks, minus their leading rusher of a year ago in Blount, and with their starting quarterback, Jeremiah Masoli, often out due to injury, have won six straight games. They've ended the nation's longest win streak (Utah's, which was 16 games at the time) and then positively embarrassed then-No. 6 Cal, 42-3. If Oregon, now No. 10, beats No. 4 USC on Saturday here, Kelly's heroes will have the inside track to the Rose Bowl. They'd still even be in the running for the BCS championship game.

How Kelly has handled Blount -- first suspending him for the rest of the season, in effect ending his collegiate career, and then three weeks later holding out an olive branch of potential reinstatement -- is more impressive. On Oct. 1, it was reported that Blount, whom Kelly had swiftly and decisively suspended for the entire season just a few days after the Hout incident, might possibly be reinstated for Oregon's final four games if, according to Kelly, he met certain agreed-upon conditions.

Kelly, blathered the sports-talk heads, was compromising himself by failing to honor the sentence he had originally imposed. Showing favoritism to a stud player who could help the Ducks in the thick of the Pac-10 race.

That afternoon Kelly appeared on "Pardon the Interruption." He calmly explained to the hosts, Kornheiser and Wilbon, that he had always intended to reinstate Blount. However, if he had set a possible reinstatement date then he would never know if that was the sole reason for a suddenly contrite Blount, who'd had behavioral issues before. Kelly's plan was to not dangle a carrot and see if Blount reformed for the right reasons.



You can choose not to believe that -- especially if you attend school in Corvallis. I am going to take Kelly at his word. What has come across as self-evident since that night in Boise is that he is not influenced by outside opinion. The New Hampshire native has a manner of doing things his own way, even though his boss (Bellotti) happens to be the most successful coach in school history.

Less than a year into the job, Kelly appears enthused, committed and balanced. He will personally step into a lecture hall once a week or so to take attendance with his players. He runs a detention hour on Friday evenings in the offseason (and Monday nights in season) that is basically an extended sweat session for players who miss meetings or are late to practice. It may be punitive, but at the end of the session Kelly will assemble everyone for a "team photo." He'll discuss an episode of "Entourage" with as much passion as he will what uniform colors the Ducks should go with in a particular week (after all, what coach has more choices?).

It is shaping up to be a terrific, happy, not bad, very good season for coaches named Kelly: Brian in Cincinnati and Chip in Eugene. The question is, Who among us ever thought we'd be saying that about both after that Thursday night in Boise?