Why Yes, Virginia, Chip Kelly Did Once Run Imaginary Out Routes at Space Mountain
As we’ve already covered today, Chip Kelly doesn’t like talking about football with you. With others? Sure. But not you, you reporter/writer/regular joe/person in public. He has nothing for you. And that attitude has never been more prevalent than in the intro to Jeff McLane’s excellent breakdown of Kelly and his coaching strategies:
Kelly and Dana Bible liked to talk football. Their conversations always drifted toward X’s and O’s, and the animated, Northeastern-bred coaches would often act out the plays they crafted in their heads.
It could be anywhere – their offices, their homes, a restaurant. On this day, it was at Disneyland. Kelly and Bible were in Anaheim, Calif., in the early 2000s for the American Football Coaches Association Convention and they were hungry.
“Why did we go there? I don’t know, the heck, it was a good place to eat,” Bible said. “We’re in Anaheim, let’s go see it. We didn’t ride any rides. We didn’t need that. We were too busy blocking and throwing touchdowns to each other.”
When Kelly and Bible reached Space Mountain, they bumped into BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall and his family.
“I’m telling you, we’re walking past Space Mountain in Disneyland, and [gosh] dang, Chip’s throwing something deep to me, or I’m, [gosh] dang, throwing something deep to him,” said Bible, who was the offensive coordinator at Boston College at the time. “We’re not throwing an object, but he was the quarterback going through the footwork and I was the receiver running the route. And then he’d come out and tackle or block this.
“We were doing it as everybody was lined up to get on the rides, and there we were talking football.”
“He’s playing games all the time in his head. I think that’s what all good play-callers do.”
Kelly confirmed the Disneyland visit through an Eagles spokesman.
A plethora of details from Dana Bible, while Kelly tells McLane – through a team spokesman – that he did, in fact, once visit Disneyland. But there are actual details in McLane’s piece. Like, how Chip doesn’t allow his quarterbacks to audible out of a play. Matt Barkley told McLane of one time Chip called the wrong play and just rolled with it. “He kept saying a curse word,” the virgin-eared Barkley said. “‘Ah, screw it, screw it, screw it! Just run it!'”
McLane’s whole piece is worth a read, especially the quotes from Ricky Santos, Kelly’s quarterback in New Hampshire. But if you take one thing away from it, and only one thing, it’s that Chip Kelly don’t ride no rides.