Ryan Day Reveals Decision-Making Process Behind Chip Kelly Hire

Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day said Chip Kelly was one of his three options for offensive coordinator, despite the job going first to Bill O'Brien.

Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day has had to make quite a few staffing decisions recently.

The Buckeyes helmsman was first tasked with finding a replacement at offensive coordinator after Bill O'Brien (who held the position for less than a month) took a head coaching job at Boston College. Now, Ohio State is in need of a new running backs coach following the departure of Tony Alford to Michigan.

Day said he approached both of these tasks the same way. Whether it was hiring former UCLA head coach Chip Kelly as offensive coordinator, or determining who will fill Alford's place on the sideline, Day starts with a list.

"The way that I did it, and it's kind of the same thing we're doing with the running backs [job], is right out of the gate I try to identify an A-List," Day said. "Those are guys that I feel like if we can hire these guys - I only had three guys - and Bill and Chip were both on that list. I felt like if we could get one of those then we were in really good shape."

Day has spoken highly of Kelly since his hiring, and the two have a history working together that goes back to their time with the San Francisco 49ers in the National Football League (NFL). 

The selection of O'Brien over Kelly was simply a matter of situations, according to Day, with the former being in a better position to accept the job than the latter.

"It was more of a timing issue the first time around with Chip," Day said. "So Bill became available, we made that move and felt like the timing was right on that and then that changed and went right back to Chip. Then, the timing was, even just a few weeks, when you're dealing with all of that, comes into play."

It is not yet known how many candidates are on Day's "A-list" for running backs coach, or who they are. 

Day's format has seemingly worked once this season, and time will tell if he goes 2-0 (or 0-2) with staffing decisions.