NFL
By: Brock Vierra
How afraid should we be of UCLA? Very. Home to one of the best offensive minds in football in Chip Kelly, a coach who doubles as a football historian, has the world at his fingertips. A young QB, an exciting roster located in one of the most popular cities in the world, and a program who are no strangers to on-field success or off-field fundraising.
There are massive concerns about the Bruins’ depth and their defense, and those questions are valid but should Chip Kelly find the answer, UCLA has one of the most potent offenses in college football.
A program that continually sends players to the NFL in the Chip Kelly era, he has secured a potential Heisman contender in true freshman Dante Moore.
The young, athletic QB is a perfect fit for Kelly’s system. The same system that Dorian Thompson-Robinson, Marcus Mariota, Jeremiah Masoli, and Darren Thomas used to put up mind-boggling numbers is now home to one of the best HS prospects I’ve seen in a while. Moore is a top-tier player. There’s an argument to be made that had Dillion Gabriel gone through with his commitment to UCLA, he would’ve been a top 60 NFL-caliber prospect just to show how high-powered this offense is. Moore himself is the highest-rated QB recruit to commit to UCLA out of high school. Putting up close to 10,000 passing yards and 135 passing touchdowns in his high school career, this kid will take UCLA to an NY6 Bowl game. Book it.
However, it’s not a one-man band with Moore. Losing Zach Charbonnet to the NFL was rough as the running back put up two 1000-yard rushing seasons in his two years under Kelly but they found a perfect plug-and-play replacement in Carson Steele. I first found out about Steele when he was at Ball State and they played Tennessee. When you talk about hard nose runner that can make someone miss in space, Steele is it. Having 1376 rushing yards in 2022, UCLA fans should be foaming at the mouth.
Now I get that Kelly’s past several years in Los Angeles haven’t exactly inspired confidence and he doesn’t win the big games consistently but there are two things that are going for him as of right now. Experience and the transfer portal. We know about Kelly’s personnel decisions while in the NFL but at Oregon, he was bringing in talent left and right. Now he has an even bigger pool to pluck ready-to-play players from and less we forget the damage LaMichael James and De’Anthony Thomas did to their opponents in Kelly’s offense. Now Kelly can bring in every player he wants.
Kelly’s defense has always been an issue and let’s not make excuses. Cam “One Man Band” Newton and Michael Dyer marched all over his defense in the 2010 BCS National Championship game and that was his best defense ever. UCLA does have a very underrated track record of producing NFL defenders so all is not lost.
Eric Kendricks and Anthony Barr both came out of UCLA. Jaelen Phillips began his career there and perhaps with a little more program stability and obviously him not getting injured, he would’ve stayed. UCLA has produced other top defensive players during Kelly’s tenure including Krys Barnes, Darnay Holmes, Otito Ogbonnia, and Quentin Lake. UCLA also made a massive improvement in hiring a new defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn. Lynn who is the son of former NFL head coach Anthony Lynn brings forth a ton of experience and youthful creativeness. At 33 years of age, Lynn has been coaching since 2014 and most recently served as the Baltimore Ravens’ safety coach. Keep in mind that Lynn’s career tracks with Mike Macdonald, the current defensive coordinator of the Ravens. Macdonald was a longtime NFL assistant before becoming the DC at Michigan. Responsible for a defense that turned around the program, beat Ohio State, won the Big 10, and sent Aiden Hutchinson, David Ojabo, and Daxton Hill to the NFL before returning himself. He is only 36 so Lynn has the blueprint to get UCLA’s defense up to standard.
Long story short…Chip Kelly is coming and defenses are gonna find it hard to keep up. He’s making his mark in the high school recruiting circuit, in the transfer portal, and on the scoreboard. A successful year in 2022 where UCLA secured their second straight winning season, the 2023 offseason came with an assortment of riches for the Bruins that could and quite frankly should see them hit the double-digit mark in wins. Alongside Moore and Steele, UCLA acquired a pair of Pac-12 wide receivers in Kyle Ford and J. Michael Sturdivant, some needed offensive line help, and a defensive tackle that I’m a big fan of in Keanu Williams. The defense has also been supplemented with four-star safety Jordan Anderson from Bowling Green and four-star linebacker Jake Heimlicher from Penn.
With this new era of NIL and UCLA having many alumni who have gained/ already were privy to wealth, the cash may start to be shelled out at an even higher level than already seen. Expect this to be Kelly’s home for a while as it’s pretty clear he isn’t returning to the NFL and it seems that only his former home of Oregon could pluck him away from Westwood. There was a time in which Kelly was averaging a 30-point differential in his victories and now he has the tools to do that again. Let’s not forget that at one point, his Oregon Ducks were the most feared team in the country.
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