Northwestern’s offensive reset isn’t wasting any time. It came as a shock to the college football world when Northwestern hired national championship-winning offensive coordinator Chip Kelly as their new OC. And now, just less than a week after landing Chip Kelly as offensive coordinator, the Wildcats are already assembling the pieces around their high-profile hire, particularly people who are already acquainted with how Kelly’s offense works. 

On New Year’s Day, ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg dropped the news that Northwestern is set to hire Jerry Neuheisel as quarterbacks coach. “Source: Northwestern is set to hire Jerry Neuheisel as quarterbacks coach. Neuheisel is a former Chip Kelly assistant at UCLA, who remained with the Bruins under DeShaun Foster and became the team’s offensive play-caller after Tino Sunseri stepped away this fall.” The hire reunites Neuheisel with Kelly, marking another chapter in a coaching relationship that dates back to their time together at UCLA. This is a good move since Northwestern will gain someone who already knows Kelly’s system and understands his philosophy.

Neuheisel’s UCLA tenure can be summed up in one word: resilience. The 33-year-old spent his entire playing career at UCLA. He quarterbacked for the Bruins from 2012 to 2015 before transitioning into coaching. After a brief stint as a quality control coach at Texas A&M in 2016, Neuheisel returned to Westwood in 2018 as a graduate assistant under Chip Kelly. He coached wide receivers from 2021 to 2023. He then moved to tight ends in 2024 while also taking on the title of assistant head coach under DeShaun Foster. 

That moment came on September 30th, when UCLA fired head coach DeShaun Foster and parted ways with offensive coordinator Tino Sunseri after a brutal 0-3 start. The Bruins’ offense had been anemic, averaging just 14.3 points per game, and something had to change. Interim head coach Tim Skipper elevated Neuheisel to offensive coordinator and handed him play-calling duties with essentially no notice. 

Neuheisel had two days to prepare for a Week 6 matchup against No. 7 Penn State. It was a game most people assumed would be a blowout. Instead, Neuheisel engineered one of the season’s biggest upsets. UCLA jumped out to a 27-7 halftime lead by scoring on every first-half possession. Quarterback Nico Iamaleava suddenly looked like a different player under Neuheisel’s play-calling. UCLA didn’t sustain that level of success throughout the rest of the season. But Neuheisel proved he could design plays, adapt on the fly, and get players to buy in.

Now, Neuheisel gets to reunite with the coach who mentored him and helped shape his offensive philosophy. Kelly’s track record of developing quarterbacks makes this partnership especially intriguing for Northwestern. The additions of Kelly and Neuheisel should help Northwestern attract serious quarterback prospects in the transfer portal and recruiting trail. It will give the program a legitimate offensive identity for the first time in years. 

Braun goes all-in on Kelly

David Braun didn’t sugarcoat what Kelly’s hire means for Northwestern. Speaking during a teleconference on Tuesday, Braun made it abundantly clear that bringing in Chip Kelly was about fundamentally reshaping what Northwestern’s offense looks like. 

“We’re hiring Chip Kelly to take this offense to a whole other level, an offense we haven’t seen at Northwestern for a long, long, long time. My job is to support him but ultimately trust him,” Braun said. Braun is handing over the keys to someone with 35 years of NFL and college experience and asking him to do his thing. Braun clearly believes Northwestern needs offensive firepower to compete in a Big Ten that features Ohio State, Oregon, and Penn State.​

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Braun doubled down on the aggressiveness of the hire, acknowledging that Northwestern’s offense has been stuck in neutral for way too long. “I want him bringing all his creativity, all his aggressiveness,” Braun said. “For us to win Big Ten championships, we’re going to have to have the ability to score more points than we have over the course of the last X amount of years here at Northwestern.” 

The Wildcats have historically operated with a conservative, grind-it-out offensive philosophy. It has worked against mid-tier competition, but it gets exposed when they face elite defenses. Giving the reins to Kelly is a philosophical shift, and Braun is betting Northwestern’s future on it.​​