UCLA Football: Is 2021 Chip Kelly’s last chance for a turnaround?

Accruing no more than four wins in any of his first three seasons with UCLA football, is 2021 a make or break season for Chip Kelly?

For the first two years of Chip Kelly’s tenure, it seemed like he had lost his mojo. He was just 7-17 and 7-11 in conference play. He had more than double the amount of losses in two seasons with UCLA compared to his four years with Oregon (7). Plus, it didn’t look like things were changing.

And then COVID-19 hit and the Pac-12 decided to postpone the 2020 season. The conference eventually got together and scheduled a shorter season, starting in November and it seemed like Kelly would get a pass given the circumstances.

After a season-opening loss to a Colorado team that was led by a first-year head coach, 2020 looked to be more of the same in the struggle department for Kelly and Co.

The Bruins followed that six-point loss to Colorado up with a blowout win over what was supposed to be an improved Cal team before losing a heartbreaker to conference favorite Oregon, 38-35 on the road.

UCLA then beat Arizona handily and shocked Arizona State to improve to 3-2 entering the final two-game stretch of the regular season.

Unfortunately, they lost two more heartbreakers to USC (43-38) and Stanford (48-47) in overtime to end the year with a 3-4 mark. While that record may look like a “more of the same” season for Kelly after his first two mediocre seasons, there was a ton of improvement shown by the Buins, namely Dorian Thompson-Robinson.

Progress was something fans wanted to see from the Bruins in 2020 regardless of how many games they were allowed to play and they showed that.

So is 2021 a do or die season for Kelly?

In my opinion, no. He bought himself some extra time with a much-improved 2020 season which could have honestly ended in a 7-0 record and a Pac-12 title for the Bruins if a couple of plays went their way. They lost four games by a combined 15 points and didn’t fall by more than six points in any game — and they probably should have beaten USC and Oregon.

Kelly does need to get things trending in that same direction in 2021 so a regression would put him back on the hot seat but 2020 was a good sign for the head coach.