The Ohio State Buckeyes beat the Oregon Ducks in a blowout in the Rose Bowl earlier this month in the quarterfinal of the College Football Playoff. And after the victory, one Ohio State coach did a little bit of chirping at his opponent.
During a press conference this week, Ohio State offensive coordinator Chip Kelly was discussing Notre Dame’s defense ahead of the national championship showdown against the Irish when he took a pretty clear shot at the Oregon Ducks.
Earlier this season, Oregon took an intentional penalty for having too many men on the field to stop Ohio State on a crucial play late in their 32-31 win over the Buckeyes during the regular season.
After Ohio State defeated Oregon in a blowout in the Rose Bowl, Chip Kelly called out Oregon for the penalty, pointing out that Ohio State dominated the next time the team faced each other “11 versus 11.”
“They can double anybody they want. But they can’t double everybody,” Kelly said according to Eleven Warriors. “If they do, it’s a penalty. They’ve got too many guys on the field. We saw that before against some teams sometime during the year.
“But I don’t know, I’ll tell you what, it was a unique message with our players, you can’t stop us with 11,” he continued. “You had to stop us with 12. You saw the final results of 11 versus 11. So that was a message to our team for the week leading up to the Rose Bowl that I think resonated really well with our guys.”
These comments are a little more interesting when you consider that Chip Kelly is the former head coach of the Oregon Ducks, leading the team from 2009 to 2012.
Of course, Ohio State will now take on Notre Dame in Monday night’s national championship game. We’ll have to see how they perform.