Northwestern needs the Chip Kelly-Aidan Chiles pairing to cook up something more interesting on offense

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Northwestern needs the Chip Kelly-Aidan Chiles pairing to cook up something more interesting on offense

Colleen Kane, Chicago Tribune · Chicago Tribune

Fri, Sep 4, 2026 ·

12 min read

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Chip Kelly and the Northwestern football team were two weeks into training camp, and the first-year Wildcats offensive coordinator wasn't really up for big-picture reflections.

What does the 35-year coaching veteran, whom NU coach David Braun called "arguably the best offensive coordinator in all of college football history," want to get out of this surprising pairing with an offense that ranked in the bottom half of FBS teams in 2025?

He's focused on team goals, he said, and just wants to make sure the players are getting better every day.

Can the former head coach of the high-powered Oregon teams and the coordinator of the 2024 Ohio State national championship offense, littered with NFL talent, work magic with NU players?

He's not into comparisons, he said, and he's more worried about whether his players are winning each practice by perfecting their details.

But Kelly did get philosophical about peanut butter and jelly.

He told his players a parable about a construction worker who every day opened his lunch box and was dejected to have to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. After months of the same response, the boss asked why the worker didn't ask his wife to make a different sandwich, and the worker replied that he made his own sandwiches.

"The point is you make your own good time," Kelly said. "So you can't complain about having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because you made the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

"For us, you get excited to come here every day because the people in this building get you excited about being around them. You want to be around them. They're good people, and they have the same shared common goal."

Kelly used the story to explain that he was enjoying going to work every day because the team was excited and putting in the effort toward something good.

But perhaps peanut butter and jelly is a good description of the Northwestern team Kelly walked into in January. Behind a strong defense under Braun and coordinator Tim McGarigle in 2025, the Wildcats finished 6-6 in the regular season and 4-5 in the Big Ten, beating Penn State and challenging Michigan before losing. They were good enough to win a lower-tier bowl against Central Michigan but not exactly buzzworthy.

Braun, who has gone 19-19 over three seasons in Evanston, is trying to fight that narrative, saying his program — with a new $875 million stadium , the Kelly hire and an experienced transfer quarterback in Aidan Chiles — should dream as big as conference titles and playoff berths.

If the Wildcats are going to take steps toward those dreams , Kelly, Chiles and some new staffers, including quarterbacks coach Jerry Neuheisel, will have to help them cook up something more interesting on offense. That starts with Saturday's opener against South Dakota State at Martin Stadium (7 p.m., BTN).

'Transformative change'

The photos went viral in late July as the college football world woke back up from its ever-shortening slumber.

Kelly met with reporters at the new Ryan Field wearing a white hard hat with Northwestern 's "N" logo on it and a purple construction vest.

All of the coaches, players and reporters on site that day had to wear the protective gear because Ryan Field was still an active construction zone as hundreds of workers whirred around getting the stadium ready for its Oct. 2 debut against Penn State. But the photos of Kelly — the former head coach of Oregon, UCLA , the Philadelphia Eagles and the San Francisco 49ers — were the ones that got social media traction.

There was a similar jolt of disbelief, even among NU players, when the news broke Dec. 30 that Kelly was joining Northwestern to replace offensive coordinator Zach Lujan, with whom Braun parted after two seasons.

Wide receiver Griffin Wilde's first thought was, "This isn't real."

"Like, someone is just messing with us," Wilde said. "A guy of this caliber, what's he doing coming back down to college football when he was in the NFL? But then I got a call from Coach Braun and it became reality, and it was unbelievable.

"I was pretty shocked at first, but now, to have him in my corner, have him be here, it's truly special."

When Northwestern introduced Kelly at a news conference in February, Kelly said he wanted to join the Wildcats because he saw them as "an up-and-coming team." He liked the people he was going to work with, including student-athletes he saw as serious about everything they do.

Kelly has had ups and downs in his career. The highs came leading Oregon to a 46-7 record and a BCS title game berth from 2009-12 and winning a national championship as Ohio State offensive coordinator in 2024. Over six seasons at UCLA he was 35-34, including 25-13 with two bowl games in his final two seasons, but he didn't quite get the Bruins where they expected.

As for the NFL, he was fired after three years as the Eagles coach and after one with the 49ers. Kelly's time as the Las Vegas Raiders offensive coordinator last season ended after just 11 games and a 2-9 record. All were accompanied by reports of culture issues or working relationship clashes.

Still, Braun didn't need to do much explaining about why he liked the pairing. And that hasn't stopped him from singing the praises of Kelly, including at Big Ten media days in July.

"I felt like the Northwestern offense needed a transformative change, and my goodness is hiring Chip Kelly a transformative change," Braun said. "It's his experience, it's his outside-the-box thinking, it's his understanding of how we can position our guys to suit their strengths within the offense.

"And the thing that stands out to me the most, sitting in offensive staff meetings … the amount of times that I'm listening to conversation, the why behind the way that we're doing things on offense and starting to recognize how difficult that is to defend. When you're sitting in there as a former defensive coordinator, you're going, my goodness, this is challenging for Tim to deal with in spring ball and for our opponents to deal with in the fall."

As Kelly settled in, Braun praised the collaboration among Kelly, McGarigle and the staff, saying their competitiveness, experience and maturity show as they identify ideas to build from and those they need to scrap.

Braun, 41, is one of the youngest head coaches in the Big Ten, and he vowed to draw from the 62-year-old Kelly's knowledge.

"I just appreciate Chip's willingness to push me in some areas where he feels like, 'Dave, we need to improve in this area,'" Braun said. "I also appreciate his willingness to say, 'You know what, Dave, I've never done it that way before, but you have conviction in that and you're the head coach. That's the way we're going to do it.'

"It's invaluable as a head coach to have someone on your staff that you can go to and ask for insight, and input is something that I do not take for granted."

Kelly brought a few assistants with him, including offensive line coach Tim Drevno and tight ends coach Bob Bicknell, who have decades of experience in the NFL and at Power Four schools.

Neuheisel joined Northwestern after a "whirlwind" year that he began as the UCLA tight ends coach before becoming the offensive play caller after midseason staff changes. New UCLA coach Bob Chesney didn't retain him, and when Neuheisel was offered the NU job, he said, "OK, where do I sign?" and bought the biggest coat he could find.

He left Los Angeles, where he had been a UCLA backup quarterback and then assistant coach for eight seasons, including six under Kelly.

Neuheisel called Kelly "one of the few people in the world that I've ever seen football with totally eye to eye," and rejoining Kelly felt the most like home if it wasn't going to be in California .

"To be here with him and doing this again, it has been awesome," Neuheisel said. "It's been a lot of old feelings but also new ones, and getting to experiment and create, it's been really fun."

Creative planning

Some of Kelly's best moments have come running offenses with major talent.

The Ohio State team that won the 2024 national championship with Kelly as its offensive coordinator had multiple current or future NFL players, including quarterback Will Howard , wide receivers Emeka Egbuka , Carnell Tate and Jeremiah Smith and running backs TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins .

That roster, which also had the best defense in the country, was said to cost $20 million, and the top rosters two seasons later are reported to be more than double that.

So the question is whether Kelly can have success at Northwestern with lower-cost talent, though the NU athletic department did announce in August that it received a $35 million donation from the Uihlein family to support the football program.

Kelly wasn't interested in comparing.

"There's no reason for me to compare them to any other teams I had because I can't get any of those (former) guys to come here," Kelly said. "So I don't even think of it that way."

As they set out to create the offense, he and Neuheisel stressed that it was about accentuating the strengths the Wildcats do have.

"Anybody who sits there and says we don't have enough talent — you don't have enough creativity," Neuheisel said. "And as long as I've been around Coach Kelly, that has never been an issue and it will never be an issue. He is one of the most incredible football minds I've ever been around, and I learned so much by being around him.

"And this entire offensive staff, we just kind of put our heads together and figure out, OK, how do we best support the talents that our guys have and put them in position to always have success? I think we've got a great plan."

As expected, the NU staff landed on Chiles after a quarterback competition in training camp. Kelly used another food and beverage reference when talking about one of Chiles' strengths, along with his athleticism and dual-threat ability.

"A quarterback is like a teabag," Kelly said, borrowing a quote from former Cleveland Browns coach Sam Rutigliano. "You don't know what you get until you put him in hot water.

"(Chiles) has been in hot water. He's got (20) starts in his college career. That's such a different thing for especially that position because practicing as a quarterback is so much different than any other position. You don't get hit in practice, no one is ever going to touch you, and in a game it's a totally different thing."

Kelly and Neuheisel have known Chiles, who's from Long Beach, Calif., since he was a four-star high school recruit. He started his college career at Oregon State before throwing for 3,807 yards and 23 touchdowns with 14 interceptions and nine rushing touchdowns over 20 starts at Michigan State.

After the Spartans started Alessio Milivojevic in the final four games of 2025, Chiles transferred amid the coaching change to Pat Fitzgerald .

Neuheisel said Chiles can make any throw and has improved his accuracy and pocket presence during their short time together — and "he can run with about anybody in the country."

"A quarterback's legs become the ultimate equalizer when you can get him out and running," Neuheisel said. "But when he can use them as a tool rather than an always thing, you become really dangerous."

Neuheisel and Kelly said it has been a process to understand the best ways to utilize Chiles, identifying which plays he sees well, which progressions or run plays he prefers.

Chiles called it fun and said it was "pretty easy to transition to the offense, the quarterback that he wants me to be and the quarterback that I'm trying to grow into as well."

His main targets are likely to be Wilde, who had 71 catches for 880 yards and eight touchdowns in 2025, and Hayden Eligon II, who had 37 catches for 531 yards and three touchdowns.

Kelly is known for what he can do with the running game, and he said Northwestern has "a group of guys that can play" at running back. Returning are Caleb Komolafe , who rushed for 941 yards and 11 touchdowns, and Joseph Himon II, who rushed for 486 yards. And the Wildcats brought in Gavin Sawchuk , who rushed for 1,463 yards and 19 touchdowns over four seasons at Oklahoma and Florida State.

So far the player reviews of working under Kelly have been positive.

"He's a smart dude," Sawchuk said. "Everything he does, everything we run, there's a rhyme or reason behind it. This guy does this, so the defense reacts this way. It's so detailed. That's something that's big for me, too, is being able to understand the full offensive scheme."

For those returning from last season, Kelly has raised the expectation about what this offense can do.

Last year's starting quarterback, Preston Stone , threw for 2,400 yards and 17 touchdowns with 12 interceptions. Under Lujan, who was in his first FBS coordinator job, the offense averaged 17.8 and 23.4 points the last two seasons.

"I think we're going to be more explosive," Wilde said. "We're going to be assignment sound. He's going to put us in a position to win football games. So it definitely raises the standard and it brings Northwestern football to a place where the expectation is, well, we have no excuse now. We've got to go out and win games."

In Neuheisel's view, that's the only attitude that should be taken. But he also brought that mindset back to Kelly's microfocus.

"If you go into a season preparing to be anything but the best, what's the point?" Neuheisel said. "There are a lot of people here who have achieved a lot in their life, and why should we stop now? For us, it's taking it on a day-by-day basis. It's how do you win Monday? How do you win Tuesday? How do you win Wednesday?

"So when you get into the game, you can let it go and not worry about the results. You can let it rip and go play and just enjoy it. And when the game is on the line, you feel calm, that you have made that play in practice a million times, and you'll be prepared for that situation."

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