Chip Kelly had his pick of jobs -- here's why he chose UCLA

LOS ANGELES -- On Nov. 15, UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero sat at a podium in a packed room in the bowels of Pauley Pavilion and read from a prepared statement. He provided a timeline of the previous week, during which three of the school's basketball players were arrested for shoplifting in China, igniting a media firestorm that somehow led to a bizarre feud between the President Donald Trump, and the parent of one of the players, LaVar Ball.

It was an embarrassing several days for UCLA and a glaring low-point in Guerrero's 15-year career as the school's athletic director -- the type of thing that can do irreparable harm to the career of someone in his position. Fans were already growing more apathetic toward the school's mediocre football team and the China incident was sure to drive even more people away.

The athletic department needed some good news. Something that would re-energize its donors and change the conversation.

Behind the scenes, the wheels were already in motion for such a development. Guerrero's mind was made up: He was going to fire football coach Jim Mora. Although he didn't make it official until that Sunday, his sights were already set on the most sought-after coach on the market: former Oregon coach Chip Kelly.

Landing Kelly was no sure thing, but over the next several days, UCLA executed one of the most improbable, flawless coaching searches college athletics has seen in some time.

On Monday, less than two weeks after Guerrero left the podium without taking questions, media members re-assembled inside Pauley. This time in a bigger room -- and joined by several fans and donors -- as Kelly was introduced as UCLA's head coach.

On the same day Mora was fired, representatives from the University of Florida's athletic department flew to New Hampshire to meet with Kelly in attempt to convince him to become the Gators head coach. Guerrero allowed for the possibility for that deal to get done, but was told Kelly wanted to hear out the Bruins.

"It didn't really matter what was taking place in other parts of the country with him," Guerrero said.

Kelly was scheduled to fly to Oregon for Thanksgiving, but altered his travel plans in order to meet with a UCLA contingent in San Francisco on Monday, where Guerrero was for a meeting with Pac-12 athletic directors the previous day.

Former UCLA quarterback Troy Aikman and donor Casey Wasserman, a sports and entertainment executive who led Los Angeles' successful bid for the 2028 Summer Olympics, were also involved in the search and both spoke to Kelly prior to his in-person meeting in San Francisco.

That group that met with Kelly included Guerrero, university chancellor Gene Block and associate athletic director for external relations Josh Rebholz. They met at a residence Block has in the city and spent several hours getting to know each other and sharing their respective visions for how a program should be run.

For Kelly, the meeting was key because he had already determined his decision on where to coach would not necessarily be based on the program's prestige or money. His priorities were elsewhere.

"Where would I fit the best and what's the best situation for me?" Kelly said. "Because it's a great game and I love football and I'm very, very passionate about it, but to be aligned and be with the right people is the most important thing."

He attributes that approach to advice from Duke coach David Cutcliffe, whom he spent time around in the spring.

It turned out to be a priority on both sides.

"The first thing we talked about was fit," Rebholz said. "Let's spend some time to figure out whether we can fit together. He didn't talk about tangible resources -- What do you have? What can you offer resource-wise? -- He talked about the strategic vision of the university of the athletic department and how it develops student athletes."

On that subject, Kelly and Block clicked.

"It was very enlightening to listen to Chancellor Block and Josh talk about what UCLA is," Kelly said. "What their values and visions are for the school. I knew a little bit about the school from coaching in the conference, so that part of it I knew, but it was good to hear more about the people who work here from a day-to-day basis."

From a football standpoint, Kelly knew what he was getting into, having coached in the conference at Oregon, first as the offensive coordinator and for four years as the head coach, from 2007-2012. Kelly compiled a 46-7 record as the head coach, while his teams averaged 44.7 points per game. The Ducks won conference titles in his first three seasons and played in the BCS national championship in 2010.

UCLA's team left the meeting feeling optimistic it could get a deal done, but they had yet to discuss the financial side of things in enough detail to know for sure.

On Tuesday, UCLA provided Kelly with more specific information about some of the topics they discussed the previous day -- development, nutrition, sports science, strength and conditioning, compliance, etc. -- and by that night Kelly's agent, David Dunn, a UCLA graduate, started negotiating on his behalf.

Rebholz served as the primary contact between UCLA and Dunn, while Guerrero remained in regular contact with Kelly.

"We knew we weren't in the same ballpark financially as several other schools might have been so we were straightforward on that from the very beginning and he was as well," Rebholz said.

UCLA's ability to compete was likely impacted, at least on some level, by money Kelly is owed from past contracts. He was fired by the Philadelphia Eagles following the 2015 season and the San Francisco 49ers the following year, but Rebholz said that those figures were never discussed during the negotiation process.

The 49ers owe Kelly approximately $15 million, sources told ESPN's Darren Rovell, and his salary at UCLA will offset that and reduce what the 49ers owe him.

"Their negotiation strategy was theirs and ours was ours and at the end of the day, we were very forthright and upfront in what we could do and we never really varied from that," Rebholz said. "It wasn't like we took a dramatic turn at any point, to get this guy we have to really go over our means. [Guerrero] is very specific and has a fiduciary responsibility to manage our athletic department and he wasn't going to go out of our comfort zone and we didn't have to."

By the end of the day on Wednesday, Florida had come to accept that Kelly wouldn't be coming and shifted its attention elsewhere. Dunn and UCLA continued to negotiate through Thanksgiving and by the end of the night a deal was all but done.

Prior to UCLA's game against California at the Rose Bowl the next day, Kelly, the only coach UCLA spoke with during its search, signed a five-year contract worth $23.3 million with a $9 million reciprocal buyout.

The Bruins went on to win 30-27, becoming eligible for a bowl, and Guerrero informed interim coach Jedd Fisch after the game.

UCLA chose not publicize the deal that day and, instead, opted to announce the hire the following morning -- rivalry Saturday in college football. It was shrewd timing in that the news dominated the college football world on one of the sport's most visible days, and came a day before several other major coaching announcements.

Back inside Pauley Pavilion on Monday, Kelly's introduction was treated like a coronation. Why wouldn't it be? His arrival was the best possible outcome for an athletic department that needed saving and UCLA was the big winner of all the coaching changes.

"We knew that he was our target," Guerrero said, "we zeroed in on it and needed to have an opportunity to get in front of it and we felt that with what we have to offer at UCLA today, that we could be very appealing to him and in fact that's the way it worked out."