Chip Kelly Media Day Q & A

Wheels · Jan 7, 2011

Q. How prepared is this team based on
what you have seen in the week of practice
since you have been down here?

COACH KELLY: They are about three
days away.
Click to expand...

Q. Why don't you like to talk about
yourself?

COACH KELLY: Because I know about
myself.
Click to expand...

were my favorite CK quotes

http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindducksbeat/2011/01/bcs_national_championship_medi_2.html

Wheels · Jan 7, 2011

here is the full transcript if interested

Q. Question about parity in college
football. The NFL has always sought parity. It
seems by now every year we have two different
teams, often different conferences involved in
the national championship game. Any
thoughts on why so many schools are a big
part of the parity with the national
championship game?

COACH KELLY: I just think there are so
many good players out there and that with the 85
scholarship limit and the fact you can only sign 25
in the classes, that not all players can go to one
school and you can't stockpile talent. I think there
is a mind-set from the coaches out there, you
know, in schools like our situation, it is about
developing the talent that you get. We don't
always win the recruiting battles. We are not
always number one in the country on the recruiting
list. It doesn't mean anything when you look at the
star system for high school kids coming out.
It is about finding the right fight for your
University and developing them when you get
there. I think that's what our staff has done a great
job of, is developing the talent that we have.

Q. Do you think the opportunity to be
on T.V., the Tuesday night games, the
Wednesday night games, a kid who might 20
years ago have sat at the bench now wants to
play on T.V. on a Tuesday or Wednesday?

COACH KELLY: I hadn't thought of it that
way. That's probably a reason. I think there's
more opportunities to be seen out there. But I
don't ever sell our kids on the fact that they come
to our school because you can be on T.V. I want
kids that want to come to our school that have a
passion for playing football.
It doesn't matter if there is one person on
the stand or 60,000 or one person watching on
television or millions watching on television. It is
do you have a passion about playing the game.
We talked to our team all the time. We don't
motivate ourselves by outside influences. We
motivate ourselves intrinsically, that's why we have
such a good football team right now.

Q. Because you are so regimented and
you like to practice early, is all of these media
obligations, is it tough to negotiate the week
because of it?

COACH KELLY: We planned our
schedule around this. We knew exactly what our
media obligations were. Our practices have been
a little bit later here in Arizona than they are during
the normal school year. But we don't have class
like we do back in Eugene. We actually are
attending class here but we are attending class for
two hours in the afternoon from usually 2:30 to
4:30 back at the hotel. We have had our schedule
set since we found out we were playing in this
game.
Once our kids get into a schedule and a
rhythm, it has been the same thing. We practiced
at the same time whether we were in Eugene or
down here. We have kept that consistency.

Q. Given how quickly this has
happened for you personally, do you have to
pinch yourself every once in a while, tell
yourself you are actually here?

COACH KELLY: I am not a pinch myself
kind of guy.

Q. Not even once?

COACH KELLY: No.

Q. We haven't had the luxury of seeing
the team behind the scenes this week. How
have you felt about how they have handled
everything? Have they been enjoying
themselves? I imagine they have been
focused. What's it been like?

COACH KELLY: They are fired up. It has
been great. We miss you guys. I apologize for
that.
Our whole process is let's eliminate
distractions. When you get to a game like this with
a million people on the sideline clicking pictures
like you are and trying to focus and concentrate on
what they are trying to do, our task at hand is
Monday night. Our players have been fantastic all
year long in preparation and they have been great
up until today. We will see it. We will run out to
practice right after this and hopefully we can keep
that same mind-set through Monday.

Q. Have they been enjoying
themselves?

COACH KELLY: Our kids enjoy
themselves in everything they do. I don't think part
of this whole deal is how do we entertain them.
They entertain themselves.
If you have a passion for playing football
like this group of young men has and our coaching
staff has, our kids love practice and they love
playing in games. So it wasn't like, hey, we get to
go to a Bowl game, what amusement parks are we
going to? It's we get a chance to play Auburn in
the national championship game, and that's what
our focus is on.

Q. Can you talk about Mike Bellotti's
impact on you, this program and getting to this
stage?

COACH KELLY: Mike hired me. So he
has got a little bit of impact on this whole deal. He
hired me in 2007 to come out there and run the
offense. He hired every other coach on staff
except for Mark Helfrich who I brought in after I
became the head coach. So he has got a huge
footprint, huge impact on this whole program.
He was our athletic director for a year after
he stepped down from being a head football
coach. All of us have direct ties to Coach.

Q. What about you personally? Are
there tangible ways that he helped us or
influenced you?

COACH KELLY: Besides giving me a job?
Yeah. He was obviously the head coach and I was
the offensive coordinator. So I worked with him on
a daily basis and got to observe good things. I
learned from it just like I learned from every other
head coach I have worked for since I have been in
college football.

Q. What was your connection with him
in New Hampshire?

COACH KELLY: I didn't have a
connection. Somebody talked to him and
recommended me, and he called me on the phone
one day. And after he said who he was, I said:
Seriously. Who is this?

Q. Who was the guy that recommended
you?

COACH KELLY: I don't know. I had
known -- Gary Crowton was the offensive
coordinator there before, before Gary went to LSU.
He coached at New Hampshire back in the day a
long time ago. I was friendly with Gary. I don't
know if Gary recommended me.
I had known Jeff Hawkins who is on their
staff as a director of football operations, currently
still our director of football operations. But I don't
know specifically. Would you have to ask Mike
that question.

Q. Can you talk about Micky Ward and
how you know him and what you think about
him as an athlete?

COACH KELLY: What I think of Micky
Ward? He is the toughest person I have ever met
in my entire life.

Q. How do you know him?

COACH KELLY: He is from Lowell,
Massachusetts. I grew up in 20 miles away. If you
grew up in New England, you knew who Micky
Ward was. Whenever we talked to our team
about -- I use a lot of different sports analogies with
our team, whether I talk to them about being
Secretariat or I talk to them about being Steve
Prefontaine or I talk to them about being Micky
Ward. And I had some friends that knew Micky,
and we got together and I have been friendly with
him ever since. He had an opportunity to come out
and speak to our team before we played the UCLA
game.

Q. How cool was it to watch The
Fighter? Did you learn stuff that you didn't
know when you watched the fighter?

COACH KELLY: I didn't know Micky
before he became world champion. So to go to
the movie like we did last night and find out how he
got to where he got to, it is an awesome story.
I'm excited. Micky is coming on Sunday
and he will be with us for the game on Monday
night.

Q. Do you ever use Peter Jacobsen
when you are talking to the team?

COACH KELLY: Yes, we do, they are
usually humorous stories.

Q. What does he mean to your
program? He is a huge fan?

COACH KELLY: He is awesome. He has
the Peter Jacobsen's Legends golf tournament in
June every year. The first time I met him was in
2007. What he gives back to our university is
unbelievable. That tournament itself and just his
passion for the University of Oregon, his brother is
a University of Oregon guy, he has got a nephew
that played golf there, too. Pete's awesome.
I know he will be here -- anybody that's an
Oregon person is going to be here this weekend.
Dan Fouts, Ahmad Rashad, Joey Harrington,
Dennis Dixon. Everybody is coming.

Q. Does he give you insight: You need
to run this play, you need to do this better?
Does he give you any advice?

COACH KELLY: He tries to. And I say I'm
never going to give you advice on how to swing a
golf club, so you stick to your sport, I will stick to
mine.

Q. Do you think the first few series will
be the tail's tale about the pace?

COACH KELLY: I don't know. I really
don't know. You can't predict is it going to be
early. Is it going to be late. I think it's -- it's going
to be a 60-minute football game, I can tell you that.
I don't know how it is going to play itself out.

Q. Talk about the ticket and this being
one of the hottest tickets in BCS history and in
two small markets relatively in the state of
Alabama and Oregon.

COACH KELLY: I'm unaware of the ticket
prices. I don't have to pay for mine.

Q. Four grand?

COACH KELLY: Four grand? To come to
this game? (Smiling).
Wow. That's awesome.

Q. What do you get from each of those
individual guys as far as motivation, Jon
Gruden, Micky Ward? I know you talked about
him.

COACH KELLY: It depends on the
message that week, what are we trying to
accomplish. Every week it is usually something
different because everybody we play is different.
So it's -- what am I talking about and then how do I
hammer that point home instead of I think
sometimes if it is just the head coach, we use
videos for motivation. We use soundtracks for
motivation. We use pictures.
If I can bring in somebody -- and I don't
bring in too many people. I only have two or three
people actually come in, whether it was Tony
Dungy or Micky or Gru come talk to our team.
I'm pretty specific on what I want to get
accomplished. It is not just, hey, let's have this guy
come in and, while he is speaking, where is he
going with this thing? There is a specific reason
for what we're doing and everything.

Q. (Question about Greg Bell)?

COACH KELLY: He was just another
resource. I had read his book before I ever went to
the University of Oregon. When I got there, it was
an opportunity to meet with another guy.

Q. Were you at New Hampshire? How
did you find it?

COACH KELLY: Amazon.com. It is a
Web site.

Q. Did somebody recommend it?

COACH KELLY: No, I'm always reading
motivational things and just trying to see how you
can do things better. I think that's the part that's
fun about our job, is we get to every day get up
and you kind of got a thirst and knowledge of how
do we do this thing better than we did before.
Someone may recommend, hey, have you read
this or have you ever seen the Jim Collins book,
Good to Great, and all of a sudden read some of
those things.
And then your job as a coach is you can't
throw everything at them. What applies to the
specific situation we are in right now and how can
it work.

Q. Is there anybody brought in this
week?

COACH KELLY: We brought them all in.
Everyone's here. Tony Dungy, Jon Gruden, Greg
Bell. Micky Ward is here. You name it, they are
going to be here this week.

Q. Any chance of hitting them over the
head too much with this stuff?

COACH KELLY: No, they are not talking
to our team but they are coming here to support
us. It will be status quo. There is no one talking to
our team this week.

Q. Some of the things that you
mentioned like Secretariat and The Fighter, are
you at all taking not necessarily an underdog
approach to this game but sort of a us against
the world like Micky Ward or a Secretariat?

COACH KELLY: No. I mean, our
message with Secretariat is he didn't care. He
ran -- I never looked at Secretariat as an underdog.
You can watch that movie. You win the Belmont
Stakes by 31 lengths, that's not an underdog in my
book.
I think the message we had with
Secretariat is it didn't care about what its
competition was. It was a faceless opponent. It
went out when the gate opened it ran as fast as it
could as long as it could. That's what Steve
Prefontaine did. He ran as fast as he could for as
long as he did. If he didn't do it that way, then he
wasn't happy with it.
We are not going to lay back, sit back and
do it. We have never taken that -- we don't talk
much about our opponent, to be honest with you.
From a scheme standpoint we do. We don't use
those "are we an underdog" and all that. Those
are outside influences that motivate you. We are
intrinsically motivated operation.

Q. Do you have an appreciation for
what you have done? There are so many
coaches in football that appeal to programs
and it is step by step. Just talk about your
sense of being able to get here as quickly as
you have.

COACH KELLY: You know, that's a good
question. Make no mistake about it, I didn't take
over a program that was down in the dumps now. I
mean, it was a pretty good team. And I was
fortunate. The cupboards weren't bare when I
became the head coach.
I'm just continuing what Coach Brooks and
Coach Bellotti have done in the past. That's what
a head coach's job is. You will be here for X
amount of years and can you put yourself in a
situation where you have an opportunity to be
successful. And the game itself is always played
by the players. We are winning right now because
we have really good players.

Q. How impressed have you been with
Darron Thomas and his ability to step into a
tough situation and really take control of this
offense?

COACH KELLY: I have been really
impressed with Darron. To be a first-year starter
and to do what he's done over the course of the
season has been fun to watch. I have watched
him get better and better each game as we've
gone along through our season, and then each
week I think he learned something new about
himself. We learned something new about him.
He has been fantastic. To be a
sophomore, first-year starter and take his team to a
Pac-10 championship and an opportunity to play in
the in the championship game is phenomenal.

Q. At one point in camp he did
something that you knew he would be the guy?

COACH KELLY: There isn't one specific,
like this play. It was like -- it was an accumulation
through spring practice, through fall camp, leading
up to our first game of we had to name a starter at
the quarterback position, and it was a real spirited
competition between him and Nate Costa for the
job. And eventually through the body of work, we
just felt like Darron was going to give us a better
shot.

Q. What leadership role does he play
and how tough is that just being a sophomore?

COACH KELLY: You know, I don't think
years define any leadership. So I can tell you I
have a lot of friends that are the same age as me
are very immature and I wouldn't follow them
anywhere.
Time served doesn't mean anything. It is
how you carry yourself. How you prepare. And
the best form of leadership is leadership by
example. And you are not going to find a harder
working kid on our team than Darron.

Q. Some people have looked at your
path to this position coming through
New Hampshire as unusual. Is there a normal
path to this position in college football?

COACH KELLY: I don't think so. I was
talking to Coach Chizik last night. I coached
against Chizik when he was at Stephen F. Austin.
He didn't know me, I didn't know him at the time.
He spent eight years at I-AA. Jim Tressel was a
I-AA head coach at Youngstown State. Coaches
come from all walks of life. It's just do you get an
opportunity to coach at a certain level.
I have always felt the big time is where you
are at. It doesn't matter if you are going to play in
a game that everyone is going to watch or no one
is going to watch, you will approach it the same
way.

Q. Who won that game?

COACH KELLY: They did, 17-14.

Q. So much has been made about Cam
Newton on one side and LaMichael James on
the other. If you were starting a team from
scratch, which guy would you choose?

COACH KELLY: I don't deal with
hypotheticals. You didn't know that answer, did
you?

Q. I did not know that answer. Let me
ask you about LaMichael James. He had some
rough patches. He had the arrest, the NCAA
accusations. I don't know his character. If you
had to describe to me his character, how would
you describe it?

COACH KELLY: The best character you
can have. Above reproach. He is in a situation
where people are going to accuse him of things
because of who he is. I have all the confidence in
the world he is a great young man.

Q. When he had that situation in
February, how difficult is it for a head coach to
deal with the situation like that?

COACH KELLY: It wasn't difficult. It is
what you got to deal with. I believed in him. I think
he handled the situation well.

Q. Can you talk about for yourself,
were you always a competitive guy? Is that
just something about you in anything you do,
you want to win? Do you just -- is that just how
you are on the football field?

COACH KELLY: Any coach is a
competitive guy. He wouldn't get into this field if
you weren't a competitive guy, if you didn't care
about the outcome. So I don't think I'm any
different than any other coach. I have always been
competitive in everything I have done. If you are
going to keep score, you might as well win. You
might as well prepare to win. That's the fun part.

Q. Your hurry-up offense, I'm surprised
it doesn't have a nickname. Are you? Do you
expect it to be -- how disruptive do you expect
it to be for them given that they have had this
time to prepare? How does that factor in?

COACH KELLY: You will find out when we
play on Monday night. But they run a hurry-up
offense themselves. I don't think this is a new
thing to them.
I think when you have this amount of time
to prepare, I think both teams will be prepared. It
will come down to the way it should come down. It
will come down to the play makers on the field
making plays. Whichever ones can make the most
will win the game.

Q. I have heard you talk about how you
think your experience from last year's BCS
Bowl game can help you this year. What
specifically do you think will help you given the
experience from last year?

COACH KELLY: I never really said that.
So I just think everybody is a byproduct of their
experiences. So you learn from history. You are
doomed to repeat it. That's what Santiago said.
Obviously whenever we have a situation that we
have been through something before, we try to
look back at it and say how do we do things better.
We are a very analytical operation. Our
goal is to get better every day. We can get better
every day by the experiences that we have.
Whether it was our experience at the
Holiday Bowl two years ago or the Sun Bowl three
years ago or the Rose Bowl last year, we will go
back and learn from all those experiences.

Q. You guys have been really great in
the second half and fourth quarter, so has
Auburn. You don't feel that puts any more
pressure on you to score points earlier and not
to get down earlier?

COACH KELLY: We don't think about
pressure. We don't talk about we need to be up
here. Our goal is to be ahead at the end of the
game. You don't get anything for being ahead
early or late. We will go out and play our game.
They will play their game. It will be dissected a
million different ways between now and then.
It will still come down to us playing them.
We will do what they we do. They will do what
they do and we will see what happens.

Q. Are you worried about them playing
tight in such a big game, coming out and being
too tight?

COACH KELLY: I haven't seen it yet from
them. So we'll see when we get there.

Q. Darron Thomas is kind of like "the
other quarterback" in this game. In a way, he
almost started out in fall camp as the other
quarterback who surprised everybody. Can
you talk a little bit about his progression from
somebody on the scout team last year to a
starter in one of the leaders of the team this
season.

COACH KELLY: Yeah, it's logical. I
mean, when you come in as a young player, you
are going to start at the bottom and work your way
up. So as a sophomore, he has put himself --
redshirt sophomore he has put himself in a position
to play.
Everything he has done here, it hasn't
surprised us or our coaching staff or our players.
We have had total confidence in Darron since he
has been here.
To the fact that he is the other
quarterback, the other guy won the Heisman
Trophy. So I would consider him the other
quarterback myself, too. Cam is the best college
football player in the country. And Darron's has
done a fantastic job for us. We're excited in what
he's going to be able to do for us.
He understands that role and it is not like
he -- we played that up, that you are not getting
enough credit. He is playing against arguably the
best college football player in the country on the
other side.

Q. When you have been watching the
Auburn tapes or just watching football in
general, have you found the SEC teams to be
significantly faster or stronger or better than
the teams in the Pac-10 or other conferences
that you look at?

COACH KELLY: No. We don't look at it
that way. I have been asked that question before.
I don't analyze it by what teams are playing against
somebody.
When I watch Auburn on tape, I'm
watching how they are doing schematically and
who their play makers are. I don't get into that
what's this league about, what's that league about.
I know we played Tennessee this year, so we have
had a game in the SEC.

Q. Do you think there is a SEC aura
offensively? They have won four of the last
national titles. Is that all overhyped?

COACH KELLY: I don't know. I don't get
concerned with that. I don't worry about any of that
stuff.

Q. It seems like in recruiting all these
guys, a lot of them -- there was one attribute
that they were not tall enough or not the right
size. Otherwise they would have had every
school in the country after them. How is your
staff evaluating these guys?

COACH KELLY: How good are they at
evaluating? Obviously we're here. So I would say
they're pretty good.
Just because other people offer someone,
doesn't mean that they are right either. I think
people get caught up on that too much. I think
your job as a recruiter and as an evaluator of talent
has to be who fits in your system at your school in
the environment that you have. And that's what's
important to us. So we've never got caught up in --
I really -- I know I'm on record many times. I think
all that stuff that goes on on the signing day and
rating the signing classes is the most overblown
thing I have ever seen in my entire life.

Q. (Question about seniors that are late
bloomers)?

COACH KELLY: That's not true.

Q. You will get them sooner, but you
are willing to do both.

COACH KELLY: I will do whatever as
soon as it gets us good players.

Q. With your second BCS Bowl,
playing in the championship game, do you feel
like Oregon has arrived, where it automatically
can be considered one of those top ten like
Alabama, Texas, Florida, people like that?

COACH KELLY: First off, I never think
anybody has arrived, because once you think you
have arrived you will get passed on by.
Second off, I could care less if we were
ranked anywhere. The only time rankings mean
anything is on the last game of the season and you
figure out which Bowl game you are going to.

When you say next year will you be preseason 5, it
means absolutely nothing. What matters is that
where do you finish the season. We run our
football program based -- not based on outside
influences, so I don't care if we are ranked or
unranked.
We got two teams playing in the national
championship that were ranked outside the top ten
for the season. That's validity in terms of how we
approach things.

Q. Does that help the recruiting
process?

COACH KELLY: No.

Q. Not at all?

COACH KELLY: I don't think so. I don't
want a kid that wants to come here because of our
rankings. I want a kid that wants to come to the
University of Oregon to get a great degree, to be at
a great university, to be coached by an
unbelievable staff, and has a passion for playing
football. If he's going to pick another school over
us because of the rankings, then I don't want him.

Q. Had to play catchup a few times in
the first half this season. How important is it
with the offense you are going against to
manage that first half and maybe not get
behind too much?

COACH KELLY: You already got us
behind? (Smiling).
I think it is very important not to be behind
at all in the game.

Q. But based on other first halves you
had, if that winds up being the case, obviously
not the prime situation --

COACH KELLY: We don't think of it that
way. We play the game. So it is not we can't be
behind at this point or we can't be yours. I know
you guys love to make a big deal of what the score
is at halftime. We haven't gotten an award for the
halftime scores. It is at the end of the game and
what happens to it.
We have never talked to our team about,
hey, we're here, hey, we're there. Let's play a full
60 minutes. We play fast, we play hard, and we
finish. That's what we try to preach to our players.
What happens in the first half has a bearing on the
game and it is important to us, but it is not the
end-all, so we don't get caught up in that.

Q. How prepared is this team based on
what you have seen in the week of practice
since you have been down here?

COACH KELLY: They are about three
days away.

Q. Can you talk about as your offense
has evolved, how the signaling has changed
and evolved with in terms of getting plays in
quicker to keep your tempo?

COACH KELLY: We are always trying to
figure out ways to do things faster.
So it is always a constant evolution. I think
it is a fun part of what coaching is, is how do we
effectively communicate what we want to have
accomplished on that next play -- a lineman
assignment, formation, snap count, what are we
running -- in an effective manner. I think that's
always an evolutionary thing for us.

Q. When bringing the boards in, which
everyone sees and identifies with your
signaling, was there a worry at the end of last
season that people might have been
manipulating your signage? Did you try to
diversify it?

COACH KELLY: No, that's just another
urban myth that everybody said that we thought
somebody had compromised our signal system
and then we decided to go another way. I have no
idea where that ever came from. That didn't have
anything to do with what we're doing.

Q. Do you find it surreal to look around
this room and see all these people here to see
you and talk to you?

COACH KELLY: Very, very surreal.

Q. How do you spend game day?

COACH KELLY: How will I spend game
day?

Q. The morning of game day.

COACH KELLY: Same system we have
had all along. We will have breakfast at a certain
time. Our kids will go back to the room for a little
bit. Then we will have a walk, which we call flow,
so they are not laying down. Me and Jimmy
Radcliffe will take them for a walk. There is a
specific place. We have that mapped out in terms
of where we are going. They will come back for
hydration. We will have chapel 4 1/2 hours before
game. We will eat four hours before the game.
We will have team meetings at the hotel offensively
and defensively, not position meetings.
Then we will jump on the bus and go to
Glendale.

Q. Do you know what we are eating?

COACH KELLY: Yeah.

Q. Are you involved in that decision?

COACH KELLY: Yeah. And that's all
mapped out before the season starts.

Q. What are you having?

COACH KELLY: We have pasta. There
will be a light meat. There will be some chicken
and some fish.

Q. Why don't you like to talk about
yourself?

COACH KELLY: Because I know about
myself.

Q. (Indiscernible)?

COACH KELLY: That's great. I entertain
myself.
I never got caught up in that. And I hang
out with a bunch of people and it's the environment
we grew up in. If somebody started talking about
themselves or I had a friend talking in the third
person, he may get hit.

Q. Everybody starts out wanting to be
here. Every coaching team has the same
goals. Why was this different for y'all? What
happened?

COACH KELLY: Why are we here?

Q. What made this difference that you
were able to get here?

COACH KELLY: We won. I don't mean to
be -- I mean, that's what it's all about, is can you
stay focused on the task at hand and win every
single week consistently. That's what makes the
regular season in college football so special, is that
you can't afford to have a slipup. You can't afford
one game. And the speculation starts before the
season starts and then goes to that first week
when the BCS rankings come out and then all of a
sudden each week seems to get more difficult if
you allow the outside influences to affect you.
People telling you you got to start lobbying to see
where you are going to finish in this whole thing
because if you don't lobby and you end up being at
this situation, you will never get into it.
We never got caught up in that. We knew
the one thing we controlled was how hard do we
prepare each week to be successful on that
weekend. And if we do, enjoy it for 24 hours, pick
your head up again and do it the next week. If you
do that, then you will have an opportunity the first
week in December to say, hey, we got a chance to
go play in this game.

Q. Should Oregon fans be worried that
you are becoming such a hot commodity that
you would leave Oregon for another job?

COACH KELLY: Again, outside
influences. I'm really worried about Monday night.
Should they be? I have never told our fans what to
think.

Q. When you look back on your days at
New Hampshire, did you ever think you would
be here playing for a national championship?

COACH KELLY: Yes. Knew it.

Q. Why?

COACH KELLY: I had it mapped out. I
got my life mapped out. 2011, January 10th, we
would be playing.

Q. That being the case, what's going to
happen Monday night?

COACH KELLY: Monday night. I haven't
gotten that far. I just got myself to the 10th. I have
no idea. I don't think any coach knows. You just
got different paths that you end up taking and
when an opportunity comes, you just weigh is it
better than the situation that I'm in. But to me it
doesn't mean anything different than whatever
level you are coaching at.
I have had a chance to go to Oregon and I
feel very fortunate that I have been given this
opportunity and I take it very seriously.
Did I have a plan that I was going to be
here? Did I think six years ago I would be sitting in
this situation? No.

Q. Ted Roof said he coached against
you when he was at UMass. Do you remember
how that went?

COACH KELLY: We beat him 40-7.
Q. Have you gone back and looked at
the tape?

COACH KELLY: No. Have I gone back
and looked at the tape? No. Because I think the
UMass defense is a little bit different than
Auburn's, and I know the New Hampshire offense
is different than Oregon's.

Q. When you look at outside
influences, clearly you totally ignore them.
Was there a time in your life where you didn't?
Was there some conversion, move away from
that?

COACH KELLY: Honestly, before I got to
Oregon, there were no outside influences because
nobody really cared. I really didn't have to manage
that part of my life (laughter). People weren't
asking me a lot of questions.

Q. It is not on the forefront of your
mind, but Luck coming back, do you have any
thoughts on that?

COACH KELLY: Yeah, I threw up, to be
honest with you. I love Andrew. I got a chance to
meet him at the Heisman Trophy. He is an
awesome kid. Just an awesome kid. I met him
and LaMichael, and I got a chance to really spend
time with him and LaMichael and Kellen, because I
ran into them and we had a chance to chat.
Those three guys are special. They are
what college football is all about. I think it is good
for college football. I think he's a real smart, smart,
smart kid, and so I'm sure it wasn't a whimsical
decision.
The competitor in us wants to face him
again. There is also a side of him that never wants
to face him again. But he's awesome. He is such
a good kid. He is such a great competitor.

Q. As an offensive guy, have you
studied Coach Malzahn's scheme before this
even?

COACH KELLY: Yeah, I have. And I went
to Tulsa, I think, a year or two ago. He just was
leaving to go to Auburn. I studied Gus when he
was at Arkansas. And I studied Gus when he was
at high school. I read his book. So I will study
anybody, whether it is Dutch Meyer at TCU,
invented the spread offense back in the '50s, or
Knute Rockne running the Notre Dame box. If it is
football information, I will try to read it.

Q. What do you think of him as a
coordinator?

COACH KELLY: Gus is tremendous. All
the accolades that he's gotten he deserves. He is
as good a football coach on the offensive side of
the ball in the country.

Q. You are an aggressive play caller.
You have confidence in your team.
COACH KELLY: I think all play calling is
determined by your personnel. If we didn't have
LaMichael James and Kenjon Barner and Darron
Thomas and all that, I would have been a
conservative play caller. It is driven by the players
that you have.
It is not -- you can't be a riverboat gambler
if you are coaching the little giants, I can tell you
that. You need to maybe milk the clock and see if
you can be close in the fourth quarter, but we are
allowed to be aggressive not only because of the
talent we have on offense, but the talent we have
on defense.

Q. Obviously this isn't the biggest
thing. What would it mean to you personally to
win a national championship? How much does
that fulfill you or pride, whatever? How much
does that mean to you personally?

COACH KELLY: I would be really excited,
but I have never stated or had a goal that I have to
do this or this to validate what I do. And I
guarantee I will wake up Tuesday morning and
figure out what the next challenge is if we have an
opportunity to. I will not retire after Monday night.

Q. Tuesday is a new day?

COACH KELLY: Tuesday is a new day to
win. You should write that down.

Q. What does having a healthy Kenjon
in the back field, able to play he and LaMichael
at the same time, what does that bring to you?

COACH KELLY: Big, big for us. He was
really starting to hit stride. You watch how he
started the season against New Mexico and then
all of a sudden went down in the Washington State
game. We missed him for a good portion of our
Pac-10 stuff. You saw it in the Civil War where
they both ran for 130. It would be like Auburn
having two Cam Newtons which would be illegal, I
think.
But I think when LaMichael comes out and
you have a caliber of back like Kenjon that can go
in and you can also split the carries and keeps
LaMichael a little bit more healthy and fresh, you
have four sets of legs at the running back spot.
That will be huge.

Q. What's the biggest difference
between the two of them?

COACH KELLY: There is not much. And
that's in a good way. They are both fast, they are
both got great change of direction. They both got
great vision. They are both tough. They both
catch the ball very well. It is really -- it is really I
and I-A for those two kids. Especially the way
Kenjon has been playing the last -- from the
beaver game on and practicing that way.

Q. Was there a cultural adjustment for
a New Hampshire guy when he goes to
Oregon?

COACH KELLY: Is there a cultural
adjustment? Yeah, they don't drive fast enough in
Oregon. I can't get to work as quick as I would like
to.
But the Northwest and the Northeast
reminds me a lot -- there are some similarities.

Q. You took a tour overseas prior to
the season. And you and I talked last in the
spring or maybe in the fall camp about that trip
and you talked about how you related to your
players, that things like heat, things like long
hours, those were issues that you saw over
there that put it in different perspective. Was
there anything more you took out that trip that
has encouraged you to where you are at now?

COACH KELLY: There is a ton. If you
have an opportunity to see the U.S. military work
up close on a daily basis like we got to do for 12
days when I was in Germany, Bahrain, Iraq, on the
deck of the USS Eisenhower, I was blown away by
their professionalism, their enthusiasm for their job.
They are just really -- how they wanted to do
everything perfect. Because they have to.
Because it is life and death in some situations and
how much pride they take in what they do.
It was really inspirational for me to just see
what that operation was like. When we went there,
I think in my mind-set just to say thank you for what
you guys do so we can play a national
championship games and live our daily lives and
not worry about what those guys go through. But
to see them do that was really inspiring to me.

Q. Why do you have so much success
recruiting in Texas?

COACH KELLY: Because there is a lot of
players. I think there was 407 kids signed
scholarships out of Texas last year. It was
something around that number. So Texas, Texas
A&M, they can't take everybody. I think the
players are really, really well coached. There is a
culture down there at the Texas high school level.
I got a chance to speak at the Texas State
High School Coaches convention this summer and
I was just blown away. I think there was 5,000
people on a Monday afternoon in July, and they
came to listen to me, which really was bizarre. But
they are very, very passionate about football in
Texas. Very well coached at the high school level.
And there is a lot of really, really good players
down there.
It is just about finding the right fight when
you go down there, and we have taken a couple
kids each year and they have been -- Darron,
LaMichael, Josh Huff, they have been impact
players for us.

Q. A lot of those kids Texas
overlooked?

COACH KELLY: I think people say that,
but I understand -- Mack Brown can't recruit every
kid in the state of Texas. And every coach, no
matter where you are, and I don't care what
program you are, your local state is going to say
you overlooked somebody. So the same thing
Mack hears we will hear in organization, You didn't
take this kid, and the same thing I'm sure Gene
hears in Alabama, you didn't take this kid.
You can't take every kid. We have
scholarship limitations. Just do the math. 407
signed scholarships and you can sign 25 of them.
Obviously he will miss a kid. Everybody misses a
kid. You miss a kid in the NFL. How does Tom
Brady go in the sixth round? I don't know.

Q. You had a long length of time
between the last football game and this one.
How did you develop a plan on how often to
practice?

COACH KELLY: I met with Jimmy
Radcliffe, our strength and conditioning coach, and
we mapped out a plan.

Q. Was that based upon a recovery
time for the athlete as bodies?

COACH KELLY: Jimmy is the guy I go to.
How long do we practice, how do we not get out of
shape, how much time should we give them off,
how much recovery time should we have. We
practice three days hard and take two days easy
and work our whole schedule. So we sat down for
about an hour one day and mapped out the whole
schedule.

Q. What's it been like to have Nate
Costa back? Has he been an inspiration?

COACH KELLY: It don't matter if Nate is
in a uniform or not. He is a huge inspiration to this
football program. Just to have nature with us, it is
big for our players. They have a tremendous
amount of respect for what Nate's gone through.
He is everything you want in a college football
player. I love the kid.

Q. Have you been around Gene Chizik
much before this?

COACH KELLY: I never met Coach Chizik
until I was at the Home Depot Awards.

Q. Anything that strikes you about
him?

COACH KELLY: I'm a big, big Gene
Chizik fan. He has had a tremendous career,
obviously defensive coordinator at Texas, Auburn,
and now back here and seeing what he has done
in two years at Auburn is -- can't help but sit back
and kind of say, wow, that guy is doing things that
are pretty special. So I got all the respect in the
world for Coach Chizik.

Q. How did you work out getting -- I
know there is two hours in the afternoon where
the guys are doing classes and study hall.
How did that work out? All the guys are
commenting how that's working.

COACH KELLY: It's kind of what they are
supposed to do. They are student-athletes. So
our winter term started last Monday. We knew our
kids would go to school. It is similar in Eugene.
We are practicing early and having class in the
afternoon. It flows the same way it does during the
school year. We practice in the morning during the
school year and we are done at 11:00 every day
and kids go to class. Same schedule down here
that really we are back in Eugene except obviously
we don't have things like that in Eugene on a
morning -- on a Friday. Besides that, it has been
practice and meetings in the morning and classes
in the afternoon.

Q. What time do you all practice in the
morning, regular season?

COACH KELLY: In the regular season, we
practice from 9:00 to 11:00.

Q. Many D-I schools that do that?

COACH KELLY: I think there is a couple.
But I don't know if there is many. Then our kids go
to class.

Q. Any particular reason you do it?

COACH KELLY: There is about 27,000
reasons that we decided to change to that. There
was class conflicts late in the afternoon. I never
had a kid oversleep and miss practice, but I have
had kids when I was an assistant coach oversleep
and miss class. So it's very difficult to say, Coach,
my alarm didn't go off, when you're leaving football
practice and heading to academics.
I think our players are at our place every
morning at 7:30, so they don't go out much at night
because they have to be productive the next day.
And ironically in the real world most things start at
7:30, 8:00. So we are preparing them for the
future.

Q. Have you heard from guys who say
how does this work for you?

COACH KELLY: I have had a few
coaches call and talk about scheduling and why
you did it. It takes a university that can cooperate.
There was a lot of moving parts. Some guys have
talked about and said that's a great idea but we
couldn't get it done because of how classes are.
At Oregon, a lot of the classes were
offered in the afternoon and the two years I was an
assistant I think we were starting practice at 4:45.
We weren't getting off the field until 6:45. Then
they eat and you are asking them to study. It
became a difficult process. We looked at it and
said how can we look at this and flip it.

Q. Couple months ago you attended
the funeral of Joe (indiscernible)?

COACH KELLY: I just saw it on T.V. I had
a chance, like I said, in May to go on a USO tour to
the Middle East to see our troops and to hear
about a local kid that lost his life in Afghanistan. I
just thought the least I could do is take an hour out
of the day when I had a day off to go there and pay
my respects and make sure that his family knew
that people really cared about the sacrifice, the
ultimate sacrifice that Joe and his family made for
his country.

Q. What was it about Darron that
jumped out when you saw him in high school?

COACH KELLY: His athleticism. When
he was recruited at a lot of different places for
being a great athlete. We wanted an athletic
quarterback. We want a quarterback that can
throw, not a running back that can -- I mean, a
quarterback can that run, not a running back that
can throw. That's what we thought Darron was.

Q. Did you think his development
would happen this fast to where he is at now?

COACH KELLY: People forget, he has
been with us for three years. It is not just like he
arrived. He came out of high school early. He
enrolled in January of 2008. So he has been here
for a while. To watch him get better and better
each year is a real credit to him and how hard he
has worked at the game.

Q. What would it mean to be to bring
the first BCS championship to Oregon?

COACH KELLY: It would be right up there
with Howard Hobson. He is a basketball coach
that won the 1939 NCAA championship. So me,
him and, Vin Lananna, Bill Bowerman, a couple
guys got national championships in Oregon before
me.

Q. First football BCS championship?

COACH KELLY: I would be fired up.
(Smiling) I will tell you that. I haven't thought much
besides that.

Q. Have you had a chance to reach out
to Ray Tellier the past month or so?

COACH KELLY: In the past month, no. I
talked to coach a couple months ago. But I haven't
talked to -- we have been running around, planes,
trains and automobiles recruiting and getting back
to practice. I haven't talked to Coach T in about
two months.

Q. Dion Jordan has made a few
position switches. How has he adjusted?

COACH KELLY: He came in as a
receiver. I think a lot of the position switches with
Dion occurred because of his size. He just kept
getting bigger and bigger, so we moved him into
tight end, then we moved him from tight end to
defensive end, and he has really flourished on the
defensive side of the ball this year.

Q. Before you got to Oregon, what was
the biggest game you had ever coached? How
did that turn out for you?

COACH KELLY: Before I got to Oregon?
We were in the national playoffs I think three of
four straight years at New Hampshire. So we
always won the first round and lost on the second
round. Depends on which game I thought was
bigger. I think the first round was bigger. We won.

Q. Have you ever seen Darron fazed or
rattled at any point this year?

COACH KELLY: In a game?

Q. Well, in any situation. But, first off,
in a game?

COACH KELLY: In a game, no.

Q. Does that surprise you just a little
bit based on his inexperience level?

COACH KELLY: No. I watched him come
off the bench as a true freshman against Boise
State and throw for 203 yards and three
touchdowns. Great part about that is he didn't
know what he didn't know. He came out and
started winging it. I would ask him what the
coverage was. He would say, I have no idea.

Q. Suddenly kids know what they don't
know or realize it is a big situation. It seems
like he doesn't get there?

COACH KELLY: Darron has never been
that guy. He has never been that way.

Q. You guys have done pretty much
everything the same this week as you have
done -- or this 38 days, whatever it is. The one
difference isn't you haven't had any media in
after practices?

COACH KELLY: Our kids have to go to
class. We are on a time constraint. We have to
leave Pinnacle High School and head back to
campus.

Q. No assistant coaches?

COACH KELLY: We are hustling to watch
film because we don't have any film out of practice.
We are hustling back because we've got to get our
filmed watched while those kids are in class
because they we have meetings. I know the media
is up in arms about it. It is right up there with who
shot Kennedy. The fact that our kids have to
actually go to class this week has been a
phenomenon that I think has really -- it kind of
makes me chuckle a little bit. But I'm proud that
we had 58 kids that had a 3.0 last term, so we are
hoping we can get more than 58 this term. So we
are going to really push the academics.

Q. If you play in a January 1st game --

COACH KELLY: If you played in a
January 1st game, we actually met with the media
after practice. So there is a kind of -- if you can
correlate those two things, when we don't have
school, we meet with you after practice. When we
didn't have school, when we were in Eugene, we
met with everybody after practice.

Q. Nothing to do with the game itself?

COACH KELLY: It is all about the game.
It is a conspiracy theory.

Q. Do you feel really bad about being
not able to meet with us?

COACH KELLY: I wish we had this every
day. Every day we would come out and have
Raisin Bran and come here. I'd be fired up.

Q. We could do that.

COACH KELLY: I know we could. That
was tongue in cheek. I don't mind this. I also think
there is a point in time where -- I don't know how
many times we can be asked the same question
over and over.
I think you guys are the same way. We
would like to play the game. And I know 14 days
from today we are going to play it, so we're fired
up. Or what seems like 14 days.

Q. Earlier on in your life, what made
you, what drew you to being --

COACH KELLY: Are you writing a book?

Q. I seriously am, yes, as long as you
win.

COACH KELLY: I'm coaching a football
team. We got a game on Monday night. My
intrinsic motivation from that, it starts with
(indiscernible). It goes from there.

Q. Do you think your kids being in
class has helped with their focus, taking a
couple hours taking their mind off the game,
thinking about something else for a couple
hours instead of the game?

COACH KELLY: Good question. And I
hope when they are in class they are not thinking
about the game. (Smiling).
I don't know. You can ask them that.
Everything we talk about is getting into a rhythm
and doing the same thing repetitively and
developing discipline and structure and habit in
their lives. Obviously they were probably better in
class yesterday than they were in Monday.
But it is one of those things. And I talked
to our players all the time. You cannot be a
selective participant. You can't pick and choose
what you would like to do. We can't do it in life.
We can't do it in the real world, so we are not going
to be able to do it here. To be a member at the
University of Oregon, to be a student-athlete at any
institution in college football, you got to go to class.

Q. You said you the same questions
were being asked over and over. Is there any
question that you haven't been asked?

COACH KELLY: I didn't put any
expectations on any questions coming in here. So
I can't answer that question of, geez, I can't believe
they didn't ask me that.

Q. Is that because you don't expect
much from us?

COACH KELLY: I expect all from you, so
I'm ready for everything, the Pythagorean theorem,
whatever, fire it at us. Let's go.

Q. What kind of look is Daryle Hawkins
giving you?

COACH KELLY: As good as you can.
You can't simulate Cam Newton in practice. But
nobody can. You have to get our scout players, no
matter who you are, whether you are Arkansas or
you are trying to be Terrelle Pryor or Ohio State
trying to be Ryan Mallett. No one has a scout
quarterback that's going to simulate who the best
player in the country is going to be.
So Daryle is a competitor and he has
taken his job very seriously. And he has done as
good a job as he can. But until you actually get in
the game and see that Cam's 60 pounds heavier
and 2 inches taller, it is what it is.

Q. Do you get a sense of getting off on
it? They are calling him Cam now. He is kind
of dressing like him. Have you heard this?

COACH KELLY: No.

Q. He wears his sleeves and the wrist
bands and taking on his mannerisms?

COACH KELLY: He's good. Good. He is
trying to do it all. Daryle's awesome. I'm really --
he is a great kid. He is fun to be around.

Q. He brings up a good point, him,
Spencer Paysinger, some other guys had very
few offers and become major contributors to
this team. Why have you been able to do that?

COACH KELLY: I mean, it is just college
football. College football is about three things. It is
about acquiring talent, retaining talent and
developing talent. And I think we do an
unbelievable job at developing talent at Oregon
and they had done that before I got there, too.
I think we got a system in place for
developing talent that you can find kids that are
maybe not ready made their first year but you had
a chance to redshirt them and develop them and
all of a sudden Pays's situation is he was a
190-pound wide receiver. He is now a 230-pound
linebacker. It was a matter of him getting more
mature physically. He had a mind-set, a passion
for playing the game that you are looking for.

Q. Were you a good football player?

COACH KELLY: Was I? I was a ham and
egger. I loved the game, though.

Q. What did you play?

COACH KELLY: I got moved around. I
played wide receiver and ended up at defensive
back.

Q. Talked to Coach Rad and one of the
things he said won him over toward you, he
respects you, is that you were very adamant
about asking the people who had been at
Oregon what works, what doesn't work, what
should we keep, traditions, things along those
lines. What were some of the things that you
threw out, what were some of the things that
you kept?

COACH KELLY: I think when I took over I
just needed to kind of immerse myself. So I met
with everybody, whether it was compliance, athletic
training, equipment room, not being the head
coach, I didn't -- I didn't know how our equipment
room worked nor did I care when I was the
offensive coordinator. I had a pair of clean socks
to go out to practice, I was a happy guy. I didn't
know what the operation was.
All I ever asked, when I took over the
program we had just won ten games and won the
Holiday Bowl. So obviously I wasn't going to say,
all right, let's throw this all out. They have been
doing things right a long time before I ever got
there. The only question I ask is how would things
work and I want to know why and the only answer I
don't want to have is "because that's the way we've
always done it." Give me the specific reason. If
the specific reason -- there was a lot of times, that
makes sense we will continue. And there were
other things I said let's change it.
The other question I asked all those
people is if you were in charge, what would you
change? And give me some feedback on that.
Then I formulated what our system was going to be
like.

Q. Obviously through the Bowl
preparation, a lot of young guys have gotten a
lot of represents. Who sticks out among a
bunch of young guys on your team?

COACH KELLY: Who sticks out?

Q. Redshirts, freshmen.

COACH KELLY: Tony Washington has
played really well for us recently. Anthony
Anderson has done a great job. Isaac
Remmington did a really good job trying to
simulate Auburn's defensive front, Derrick Malone
is a guy that has done some nice work for us.
Those are a couple names off the top of my head.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about what
Cliff Harris means to your defense and how he
could potentially impact the game with his punt
returns?

COACH KELLY: Yeah, Cliff's, you know,
one of our good defensive backs. But I think
everybody talks about Cliff being this, that and the
other things maybe because he is loquacious and
all those other things. I believe our best defensive
back is Talmadge Jackson. And you can ask the
Pac-10 coaches, because they voted Talmadge
First Team. I think Cliff gets a lot of balls thrown
his way because a lot of people don't throw the ball
at Talmadge.
But Cliff's maturity as he has grown has
been tremendous. Where he was in fall camp to
where he is now, I'm really excited and hopefully
he's the type of kid that somehow is always around
the ball and can make plays and hopeful he is
making the right plays and we are capitalizing on it.

Q. Does the attitude that he takes sort
of rub off on others in terms of just his
aggressiveness?

COACH KELLY: Yes and no, and
sometimes that's a good thing. Sometimes that's a
bad thing. Because I don't think if you were a deep
third corner and you are playing really aggressive
and trying to make a tackle at the line of
scrimmage is always the right thing to do.
He has done a better job as a season went
along of understanding what his role is and how he
fits into the thing and it is a total team defense in
terms of what we do. And it is not a one-person
defense.

Q. Darron Thomas developed in any
way that he exceeded your expectation?

COACH KELLY: Now, I thought DT would
be special. The great thing about Darron, he
hasn't changed no matter how successful he has
been or what's gone on with him. He comes out to
work every day. He has got the same attitude, the
same kind of mind-set and I have been really
impressed with that. That's what he has been like
since he got to our place.

Q. Did he pick up things quicker than
you thought?

COACH KELLY: I think people are -- he
has been with us for three full years now. So it is
not like they just arrived on the scene. He just
arrived on the scene because he is playing the
season, he enrolled early out of high school. He
enrolled in our place in 2008 so he has been with
us for a while.

Q. What in his personality led you to
believe that he would progress so quickly?

COACH KELLY: He has been a
level-headed kid. Not really up, not really down. I
think he is a steady and calming influence on his
team. That's what his personality has been.

Q. Any danger of overconfidence for
him? He seems like such a --

COACH KELLY: No, he is actually a real
quiet guy. He doesn't -- he is not a talker. He is
also not concerned with own personal statistics.
All he wants to do is win.

Q. You talked about developing
players. How does Boseko fit into that and
how good can this kid be?

COACH KELLY: I think Boseko can be
outstanding for the impact he has had on our
defense as a redshirted freshman. He has been
tremendous.

Q. Any surprise given his background,
where he came from?

COACH KELLY: No. Because he went to
high school in south Eugene. We knew all about
him. He was a local kid. He moved back up to
Canada for his senior year. We knew about Bo
when he was a local high school kid the whole
time.

Q. Zac Clark and some of the other
guys on defense said the unit has grown since
the Rose Bowl and the problems they had with
Terrelle Pryor and they have matured. What do
you think about that? Do you agree with the
growth in the defense, and what do you see
coming into this game?

COACH KELLY: We'll see. I think our
problem wasn't schematically in the Rose Bowl. It
was that we couldn't tackle him. We had a lot of
shots at Terrell and we couldn't get him down to
the ground.
All the credit to Terrelle in how he played
and how he performed. He kept drives alive with
his feet but he also threw the football. I think our
defensive as a whole is better than a year ago.
The statistics will bear that out.
As a group they are playing better.

Q. Do you see this being a similar
situation where you have to get Cam?

COACH KELLY: I hope not because we
lost last year. I hope it is not similar to last year.

Q. As far as trying to tackle him?

COACH KELLY: Oh, yeah. You are going
to have to get everybody around him and try to
rally to the ball. Obviously Auburn's offense is
different than Ohio State's offense.
So the similarities end with just their
physical presence in terms of how big they are and
trying to tackle him and get him down to the ground
and how fast and elusive they are also.
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Chip Kelly Media Day Q & A

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