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AG's Wildcat Report - Dispatches on the Wildcats, from Anthony Gimino

Spreading the news: Rich Rodriguez gave Chip Kelly his start in read-option football

by on Sep. 17, 2012, under Arizona football
Chip Kelly

Chip Kelly is 37-6 as the head coach at Oregon. Photo by Ron Chenoy-US PRESSWIRE

Blame Rich Rodriguez.

The Oregon Ducks have won three consecutive conference championships, have averaged 489 yards in the past 69 games and haven’t finished worse than 12th nationally in scoring in the past five seasons.

And all dominance has origins to sometime after the 1999 season when a largely unknown offensive coordinator from New Hampshire met with a rising offensive coordinator from Clemson to learn more about this exciting, new, fast-paced offense the Tigers were running.

That is how Chip Kelly began to master the read-option offense that Rodriguez pioneered 20 years ago at Glenville State.

“We have always kind of kept in touch,” Rodriguez told TucsonCitizen.com this summer at Pac-12 Media Day.

“I think we traded a lot of ideas. He got our film and we got his film. We do some similar things, and then we do some things differently. Chip obviously has done a great job with it.

“I think philosophically, Chip is probably the closest to what we believe in offensively and how to go about it than anyone else out there.”

Rodriguez and Kelly will meet as head coaches for the first time Saturday night, when 22nd-ranked Arizona takes on No. 3 Oregon in what could very well be the most entertaining game of the day. The Wildcats are averaging 604.7 yards through three games. The Ducks are at 596.3.

Back in 1999, Kelly was looking for a way to implement a one-back scheme that better fit New Hampshire’s personnel at the time. Rodriguez had just wrapped up his first season at Clemson, running the no-huddle, shotgun spread whose core play is the zone read from the quarterback.

Kelly found something he really liked.

Kelly’s success with the offense at New Hampshire launched him to becoming the offensive coordinator at Oregon in 2007 under head coach Mike Bellotti. The Ducks had been running a spread offense, but Bellotti entrusted Kelly to turn that attack into the running spread that more resembled what Rodriguez was doing at the time as the head coach of West Virginia.

Thus began an unprecedented run of success for Oregon, with Kelly becoming head coach in 2009.

Each coach constantly tweaks the offense as defenses adjust year-to-year, but the heart of the matter is the same, Rodriguez said — spread out the defense with the offensive formation and recruit lots of speed.

“The main philosophy is us getting fast guys the ball in space,” Rodriguez said. “Whether you’re throwing it to them or handing off to them, you’re trying to get the guys the ball in space. The single hardest thing to do on defense is tackle in the open field.”

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2012 at 9:13 am and is filed under Arizona football. Tags for this post: , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  • beaker

    Hi
    Anthony. Maybe I’m a starry eyed wildcat fan of old but am
    having trouble reconciling the betting line of the Wildcats vs Ducks
    being 22-24 points. I looked at the scores of the past few
    years and they were much closer than this spread. I looked at
    the teams Oregon has played this year, Tennessee Tech, Hampton, and
    Fresno State and I came away unimpressed by the Ducks margin of
    victory. I also am unimpressed with the teams the Ducks opponents
    have played, the win/loss results and margins of victory. It is
    obvious too that Oregon’s defense can be scored on by less then
    stellar offenses.

    Of
    course one can argue, rightly so, that Oregon might not have had
    their “foot on the gas” against their opponents save Fresno
    State, though the same can be said for Arizona vs SCS without a
    doubt. The first game against Toledo the Cats certainly were up to
    the task offensively and defensively but shot themselves in the foot.
    For the first game under a totally new system defensively and
    offensively one has to be very impressed. Then what they did with
    Oklahoma State was awesome, period, especially in view of the
    aforementioned new schemes. Then Arizona did what a good team does
    with a lesser opponent and did this with players names I’ve never
    heard. Arizona went to a vanilla run game in the latter part of the
    fourth quarter and still had trouble not running up the score.

    With
    the schemes these schools run, there will obviously be more touches
    on offense for both teams. Both schools have shown you can only slow
    them down a bit but not much, thus both should score readily. On
    that note Arizona is averaging approximately ten more yards per game
    against, one could argue, somewhat better competition.

    Of
    course there is home field advantage and Oregon’s athletes at this
    time are more adept at this offensive scheme. Defensively Arizona
    will be better in game four because they practice against an
    offensive that is a carbon copy of Oregon, have had another week to
    prepare against such and will digest tons of Oregon game film this
    week. My only reservation is Arizona’s weak pass rush of which
    everyone in the Pac-12 is aware. How ever bizarre this may seem, and
    it probably is, this may be to Arizona’s advantage. I’ll leave that
    one alone. lol

    Anyway
    Anthony. Do I need some time on the couch? Psyche meds? A long walk
    on a short dock?

    Come
    back.

    • Anthony_Gimino

      The betting line usually is enamored with Oregon and the Ducks’ ability to score in great quantity. In that sense, being a 24-point favorite against Arizona might be too much.

      But if the Ducks play their best and don’t turn the ball over (as Oklahoma State did vs. UA), then it’s going to be an awfully long night for the Wildcats. Any game against Oregon has a chance of getting away from you in a hurry.

      On the other hand, Matt Scott gives Arizona a chance to match the Ducks TD for TD. Should be interesting.

      • beaker

        Thanks for the response Anthony. I’m sure you have a busy schedule. Key word is “enamored”. One dictionary defines “enamored” as the following: “Marked by foolish or unreasoning fondness” lol

        In your response I replace the words, Oregon and Ducks with Arizona and Wildcats. Then the same with Oregon and Ducks and I it sounds quite reasonable:
        “The betting line usually is enamored with Oregon and the Ducks’ ability to score in great quantity. In that sense, being a 24-point favorite against Arizona might be too much.But if the Cats play their best and don’t turn the ball over (as Oklahoma State did vs. UA), then it’s going to be an awfully long night for the Ducks. Any game against Arizona has a chance of getting away from you in a hurry, s the last two games have indicated.Matt Scott gives Arizona a chance to match the Ducks TD for TD. Should be interesting”

    • beaker

      oops, I inadvertently posted my response before I was finished with it.

      Go Cats!

    • PAC12Fan

      Oregon has been pulling their starters early to give experience to those lower on the depth chart. In their first game they pulled the starters midway through the second quarter when the score was 50-3.

      Weaker teams have scored on Oregon but not so much in the first half. Looking at what Fresno State did to Colorado can give the impression they are not as weak as all that. Fresno did show how to slow Oregon down.

      The point spread is probably too wide and Oregon makes no effort to cover the spread. Kelly seems to have disdain for odds makers as he closes practices, won’t address injuries, and restricts player access to the media.

      The past couple of years Oregon played in close games until the fatigue factor set in and they pulled away from tired defenses. Arizona is likely to be their toughest test because the teams practice and play similarly. Other very talented PAC 12 teams may not be able to keep pace for an entire game

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