LOS ANGELES _ UCLA has hired former Oregon coach Chip Kelly, the Bruins' top choice to replace Jim Mora.
School officials confirmed the move Saturday morning, announcing that Kelly had agreed to a five-year contract worth $23.3 million with a $9 million reciprocal buyout. Kelly will be introduced during a news conference on campus Monday afternoon.
The deal represents the most tantalizing hire in the history of UCLA's football program, given that Kelly guided Oregon to the national championship game after the 2010 season as well as three conference titles in his four years at the school.
The Bruins have not won a conference title since 1998, which also was the last season they appeared in the Rose Bowl game.
"I am thrilled to welcome Chip Kelly to Westwood," UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero said in a statement. "His success speaks for itself, but more than that, I firmly believe that his passion for the game and his innovative approach to coaching student-athletes make him the perfect fit for our program. 'Champions Made Here' is more than just a mantra at UCLA, and I'm confident that Chip will lead UCLA Football back to competing for championships. I'd like to thank Josh Rebholz, Casey Wasserman and Troy Aikman for their input during this process, as their candor, experience and support were invaluable."
Among the coaches Kelly could court as part of his new UCLA staff are former Oregon coach Mark Helfrich and California defensive line coach Jerry Azzinaro. Helfrich and Azzinaro coached under Kelly at Oregon, with Helfrich succeeding Kelly as head coach of the Ducks in 2013 and Azzinaro following Kelly to the NFL that same year as part of Kelly's staff with the Philadelphia Eagles.
"It is an absolute honor to join the Bruin Family, and I am grateful to Chancellor [Gene] Block and to Dan Guerrero for this incredible opportunity," Kelly said in a statement. "UCLA is a world-class institution with a distinguished history in athletics, and we will do our part to uphold its tradition of excellence."
Kelly became only the second coach in NFL history to win a division title in his first season; the Eagles went 10-6 during the 2013 regular season but lost their opening-round playoff game. Philadelphia also posted a 10-6 record in 2014 but failed to make the playoffs, and Kelly was fired before the end of the 2015 season after his team went 6-9.
Kelly, who turned 54 on Saturday, went 2-14 with the San Francisco 49ers in 2016 before being fired. He spent this season as an ESPN analyst.
Kelly is known for running offenses that spread the field and play at a frenzied pace, tiring defenses and creating coverage problems. A book about Kelly's 2014 season with the Eagles was titled "Controlled Chaos." His final Oregon team, in 2012, averaged 49.6 points per game and ran a staggering 82.8 plays per game.
Kelly guided Oregon to major bowl games in each of his four seasons as head coach, including two appearances in the Rose Bowl, one in the Fiesta Bowl and one in the 2011 Bowl Championship Series national title game, where the Ducks lost to Auburn 22-19 on a last-second field goal. His teams went a combined 46-7 and finished in the top four in the Associated Press poll three times.
Kelly's success at Oregon was accompanied by trouble with the NCAA. Shortly after Kelly left for the NFL, the Ducks were placed on three years' probation by the NCAA after a $25,000 payment was found to have been made to a recruiting service with ties to high school prospects being pursued by Oregon. As part of the punishment, Kelly was issued an 18-month show cause order, meaning any NCAA school that wanted to hire Kelly during that span would have to show justification for its choice to the NCAA.
UCLA fired Mora on Sunday after he went 46-30 in six seasons. Mora took UCLA to the Pac-12 championship game in 2012 and a bowl game in each of his first four seasons before a steep decline in which his teams went 10-17 since late in the 2015 season.
UCLA offensive coordinator Jedd Fisch was made the interim coach before the Bruins defeated California 30-27 in their final regular-season game Friday. The victory made the Bruins, 6-6 overall and 4-5 in the Pac-12, eligible for a bowl game. Fisch and the other UCLA assistants are expected to remain with the team through any postseason game.
Dismissing Mora before the end of the season allowed UCLA to pursue Kelly, who also was being courted by Florida to fill its coaching vacancy.
Kelly inherits a UCLA program in the midst of a historic downturn; the Bruins' 19 consecutive seasons without an appearance in the Rose Bowl is the longest drought in more than half a century. The team did not appear in a Rose Bowl from its first season as the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919 until facing Georgia on Jan. 1, 1943.
UCLA was nationally ranked only briefly in each of the last two seasons. The Bruins opened 2016 with a No. 16 ranking but fell out of the polls after a season-opening loss to Texas A&M. UCLA was ranked No. 25 after starting this season with victories over Texas A&M and Hawaii but became unranked after a loss to Memphis.
UCLA could feature as many as nine returning starters on offense and defense next season, depending on how many juniors decide to forgo their final season of eligibility and declare for the NFL draft. Quarterback Josh Rosen is a possible top draft pick, and left tackle Kolton Miller and receiver Jordan Lasley also could opt for the NFL.
Lasley said Friday he had not decided whether to return to UCLA but acknowledged that the school's choice of its next coach could factor into his decision.
"I mean, of course I feel like it would," Lasley said after becoming the first Bruin in school history to log back-to-back 200-yard receiving performances. "I don't know who's going to be the coach, I don't even know who they're thinking about as head coach."
Kelly has less than a month to make recruiting pitches before the new early national signing day that starts Dec. 20. Dorian Thompson-Robinson, the quarterback from Las Vegas Bishop Gorman High who is considered the Bruins' top recruit, recently reaffirmed his commitment by tweeting "I'm 100000000 percent UCLA".
