The Virginia football team welcomed a special visitor to its facilities this week. Chip Kelly, former Oregon and NFL coach, spent part of the last two days with the Cavaliers. That included observing Tuesday morning’s practice at the George Welsh Indoor Practice building.
Hoo coach Bronco Mendenhall said that a Virginia graduate helped make the connection between the coaches. Kyle King graduated from UVA in 2014 after spending four years as as student worker in the football office. King followed his graduation with an 11-month paid internship with the Philadelphia Eagles while Kelly was the head coach there. He’s since returned to Virginia for a new graduate assistant spot in administration.
Mendenhall had a Jeffersonian outlook on the visit.
”He’s done a really nice job in his career and I think he’s exceptional at what he does,” Mendenhall said. ”There has been a mutual kind of respect and admiration and philosophy. What I think is when you quit learning, you become irrelevant so not only is Chip traveling the country and visiting different college practices, he’s looking to learn as well as myself. [We’ve had the past two days] to talk football and improve our program. So I think it’s just a great opportunity for our program.”
Kelly, of course, became of the nation’s most recognizable football coaches with the Ducks. He guided that program to four BCS games as a head coach: the 2010 Rose Bowl, 2011 BCS National Championship Game, 2012 Rose Bowl, and 2013 Fiesta Bowl. He piled up a 46-7 record at Oregon before leaving for the NFL, though his stint there didn’t go as well with a 28-35 record. The Ducks were well known for their high speed spread offense with Kelly. That’s something that Mendenhall’s BYU and UVA teams adopted in part as well.
Kelly has spent some time visiting college programs like Virginia this year, including a visit to Navy. Still, when speaking to the Cavaliers after practice Tuesday morning, the message didn’t focus on some sort of secret system or football plays. His talk touched on a wider scope.
”It was cool,” Cavalier quarterback Kurt Benkert said. ”His big message for us was that everyone is given the same amount of time and you choose what you do with it – you’re either investing your time or spending your time. That was his key point for us. So aside from football, it was just kind of philosophical that he brought to us today.”
”It was great to see Coach Kelly out here,” receiver Andre Levrone said, noting his college success and his time in the NFL. ”It was good to see somebody like that come take interest in our program and it was also great to hear that a lot of his philosophies are the same things that Coach Mendenhall’s been teaching us. The biggest thing I took away from what he was saying is that you can’t cheat this game – you get out what you put in, you reap what you sew. Something that Coach Hagans says that’s reminiscent of it is that you can’t call on the work that you don’t put in. So you will be exposed if you don’t put that work in.”
Kelly also spent time with the coaches and the player personnel department this week. The Cavaliers play their annual Spring Game on Saturday where Mendenhall said to expect approximately 70 scrimmage style plays of offense vs. defense and not an Orange-Blue two-team format.
