College Football 5th Quarter: National Championship aftermath

4. The NFL turns to college football

Not only were the Indianapolis Colts interviewing Matt Rhule for their head football coach opening but the Chicago Bears have hired unemployed former college football coach Mark Helfrich as their offensive coordinator. Helfrich was fired as the Oregon Ducks head coach in the middle of the 2016 season but now he’s an offensive play-caller in the National Football League.

The Bears are attempting to copycat Andy Reid‘s offense with the Kansas City Chiefs which is a mix of the west coast offense and a college zone scheme. Helfrich is a zone coach that learned his offensive scheme and chops from Chip Kelly in Eugene, OR. Kelly went to the Philadelphia Eagles of the NFL and Helfrich took over the Oregon Ducks.

Helfrich isn’t the only “Back to School” move for the NFL, as Marcus Mariota is in the second round of the playoffs, Kelly was put in charge of two franchises before returning to college football, and the inside zone read and run-pass options are all over the NFL. Nick Foles, a Chip Kelly quarterback in the NFL, accounted for 240 yards in a playoff win on Saturday, Jan. 13.

The NFL, which has slowly adopted more option based schemes, has college type quarterbacks all over their playoff picture in Air Raid quarterback Case Keenum, option based passer Marcus Mariota, Foles who played for Chip Kelly, and Blake Bortles who uses the zone read game in his arsenal.