UCLA’s Chip Kelly points to Notre Dame football as an example for realignment

It’s going to be a reunion of sorts when UCLA and USC join the Big Ten in 2024. Oregon and Washington are now coming along as part of a superconference that might need some rebranding to reflect its growing size.

“I’m fired up for the Big Eighteen,” UCLA coach Chip Kelly cracked Tuesday.

Kelly coached at Oregon several years before he arrived in Westwood, meaning he fully understands how adding two more West Coast teams to the Big Ten could lessen travel concerns, preserve rivalries and intensify recruiting battles in the old Pac-12 geographic footprint.

Yet the move won’t alleviate the travel worries of teams in other sports that will play more games, often in harsher weather while traveling to the Midwest and the East Coast. Kelly has an idea for how to resolve that issue, expanding upon the proposal for realignment he unveiled to reporters last week.

As part of the Kelly Plan, football would be uncoupled from all other sports at every school to mitigate all those unnecessary airline miles. There’s an example of one school already doing it in the Midwest.

“Notre Dame is an independent in football, but they’re in a conference for everything else,” Kelly said, alluding to the Fighting Irish’s other sports primarily playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference. “Why aren’t we all independent for football? Take the 64 teams in Power Five and make that one division, take the 64 teams in Group of Five, make that another division. We play for a championship, they play for a championship and no one else gets affected.

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“Our sport’s different than everybody else — we only play once a week, travel’s not a big deal for football, but it is a big deal for other sports. So that’s my theory.”

Kelly would not say whether he wanted UCLA to play Oregon and Washington every year as part of a West Coast pod of the Big Ten, adding that no one asked him and he didn’t have a vote in the matter.

Some have speculated that Oregon and Washington tagging along with the L.A. schools to their new conference could negate any recruiting advantages UCLA would have otherwise enjoyed in the Pacific Northwest among prospects eager to play in the Big Ten. Kelly disputed the idea that there was any correlation.

“You want to know what’s going on in recruiting right now?” Kelly asked. “It’s all NIL. So whoever has the most money is getting the most players.”

Nil to worry about?

A day after saying he was staying off social media, quarterback Dante Moore went on Twitter over the weekend to dispute a post on Bruin Report Online stating that the true freshman was unhappy with his Name, Image and License situation.

“To clear the Air these ‘Rumors’ are totally False,” Moore wrote. “I’m blessed and thankful to be a Bruin. I Love being around this brotherhood! #GoBruins”

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Asked about the situation Tuesday, Kelly said he was unaware of it until the reporter brought it up.

“That’s the first I’ve ever heard of it,” Kelly said, “so it’s not a distraction to me.”

Moore, the Bruins’ highest-rated quarterback prospect in at least two decades, remains locked in a tight battle with redshirt junior Ethan Garbers for the starting job. Kelly said he would name a starter before the season opener against Coastal Carolina on Sept. 2 and suggested that whoever won the job would remain in that role indefinitely.

“If you’re a quarterback, then I don’t think you need to be looking over your shoulder,” Kelly said. “You need to go play and not worry about it. We don’t say, ‘All right, you’re going to start; however, if this, this and this happens, you’re not going to play.’ I don’t think that instills much confidence in whoever wins that starting job. I mean, it’s not like you do that at any other position.”

Etc.

Linebacker Ale Kaho, who missed all of last season and spring practice while recovering from a leg injury, completed a second consecutive day of participating in individual drills during the portion of practice open to reporters. … Linebacker JonJon Vaughns, rounding into shape from baseball season, participated in individual drills for the first time Tuesday. … Offensive lineman Siale Taupaki, recovering from an undisclosed injury, was also increasing his practice participation, Kelly said.