Chip Off The Block - Kelly's Fingerprints All Over UNH's Offense

HARRISONBURG — It’s been a decade since Chip Kelly was the offensive coordinator at the University of New Hampshire, but his influence on the program is still evident in 2016.

The coach he worked for, Sean McDonnell, is still leading New Hampshire in his 18th season at the school. As Kelly has climbed through the profession — from his time as an offensive coordinator and then head coach at the University of Oregon, to opportunities in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles and now the San Francisco 49ers — the Wildcats have kept many of his philosophies in place.

“Offensively, they have a lot of aspects of Oregon with all the formations and all the motions,” James Madison coach Mike Houston said. “Certainly, they’ll put a stress on us from an alignment standpoint and responsibility standpoint.”

The No. 7-ranked Dukes head to Durham this weekend to meet New Hampshire in a clash of two unbeaten Colonial Athletic Association squads.

For three years, Alex Miller served as a graduate assistant under Kelly at Oregon. Since leaving Eugene, he’s been the offensive line coach at New Hampshire.

“When coach [McDonnell], here at New Hampshire, had an opening back in 2011 for the offensive line job, Chip actually recommended me,” Miller said.

McDonnell and Miller’s tie to Kelly has helped New Hampshire maintain his offensive system.

“Most of the run-game stuff has a lot of carry over,” Miller said. “Some of the passing concepts are a little bit different, but the principles of the offense and run game are very similar.”

JMU defensive coordinator Bob Trott faced New Hampshire’s offense in each of the last two seasons when he held the same job at Richmond.

“Oregon got all their stuff from New Hampshire when coach Kelly went out there,” Trott said. “The only difference is New Hampshire doesn’t have all those different uniforms.”

Oregon reached four straight BCS bowl games under Kelly, including the 2011 National Championship Game. That season, Oregon averaged more than 49 points and 537 yards per game. Running back LaMichael James led the country in rushing and won the Doak Walker Award, given to the nation’s top player at the position.

Houston said he is most concerned about how his defense will fare against New Hampshire’s rushing attack.

The Wildcats are averaging more than 200 rushing per game. Senior running back Dalton Crossan ranks fourth in the league in rushing, gaining over 117 yards per contest.

Sophomore quarterback Trevor Knight is just as capable carrying the football as the team’s second- leading rusher with 306 yards on 80 attempts this season.

“You can’t sit there and overplay the running back because the quarterback will go back door or keep it up the middle,” Houston said. “You have to play both.”

New Hampshire will show zone-read and zone-run looks on just about every series.

“They will run every variation of the zone-read that you can imagine,” Houston said. “They’ll read the three-technique, the five-technique and will do some straight quarterback run. We have to be very sound with the way we defend the quarterback this week.”

That responsibility falls on JMU’s defensive ends Andrew Ankrah and Darrious Carter.

Carter, a sophomore transfer from Virginia, helped JMU beat William & Mary on Saturday by forcing Tribe quarterback Steve Cluley into a second-half, red-zone fumble on a zone-read play.

“I’m not blocked on most of these plays, so it’s really tempting to want to run up the field to create havoc,” Carter said. “But coaches are drilling it into my head to play my keys and stay on the line of scrimmage this week.

“I have the quarterback when I’m assigned to the quarterback. I have the running back when I have the running back.”

For Carter and the rest of the defense, finding pre-snap keys won’t be the easiest task.

Junior safety Jordan Brown said the multiple formations the Wildcats show, in addition to the number of skill players put in motion on any given play, can complicate reads for a defense.

“After watching film, we got down to the basics because we wanted to see what they ran and what personnel they went through,” Brown said. “We found out they did a little muddle-huddle action, which is where some of Oregon does comes through.”

In the passing game, New Hampshire will throw screens and off the run-pass option.

Miller said McDonnell and the offensive staff have adjusted some of Kelly’s concepts to better fit their current roster.

“That’s the beauty of it. You can mold it to your personnel year-to-year,” Miller said. “That’s one of the things I learned from Coach Kelly early on.”