Florida Football: Is Chip Kelly a good fit for the Gators?

Why Chip Kelly doesn’t fit at Florida

While Chip Kelly is a veteran coach that could handle the pressure and spotlight of the SEC, that’s not who the Gators have won with over the years.

They’ve won with Spurrier, who was at Duke prior to his arrival at his alma mater in Gainesville. Urban Meyer was at Utah, and before that even less know Bowling Green. McElwain was at Colorado State. Their successful head coaches have previously served a a head football coach but have been at a smaller pressure school before blowing up at Florida.

Kelly would be the opposite. He would be the big name coach that comes to Gainesville with less to prove and a higher price tag than the others. Kelly is used to NFL money and what Phil Knight paid at Oregon. He would be coming to the Gators, a program that can afford high-end salaries, but also one that has to be skeptical after a couple of failed hires.

On the recruiting and culture end, Kelly hasn’t spent a lot of time in Florida. He’s spent 80 percent of his career in the northeast before his move to the Pacific Northwest. The recruiting layout and the overall culture of Florida will be a whole new skill set to acquire for Kelly. Add that to the fact that the state hasn’t produced a plethora of quarterback talent and he may be a better fit for a state that he’s recruited before, and that does produce that type of position player frequently.