The college football world was caught off guard this week by the news that Chip Kelly—one of the most polarizing figures in modern coaching—is heading to Northwestern to take over as offensive coordinator. While some see it as a high-IQ hire for a program looking to rebuild, “The Coach JB Show with Big Smitty” analysts Coach JB and AJ McCarron had a far more visceral reaction. In a segment that quickly went viral, the duo delivered a scathing critique of Kelly’s career, his “organic” success, and his fitness for a role at a school as prestigious as Northwestern.
Coach JB didn’t mince words, comparing Kelly’s ability to land high-paying jobs despite a string of recent failures to “walking into a bank with no mask and taking the money.” The primary point of contention for JB was Kelly’s recent stint with the Las Vegas Raiders, which JB described as a “shit show install-wise.” He questioned whether Kelly even has the “balls” to be a head coach anymore, suggesting he’s retreating to the OC role at Northwestern—a place where the academic standards used to be high but are now, according to JB, diluted by the transfer portal.
AJ McCarron, a three-time national champion who has seen his fair share of elite coaching, offered a more tactical but equally damaging breakdown. McCarron questioned whether Kelly has ever actually “built anything organically” throughout his career. He noted that Kelly inherited a structured, rolling program from Mike Bellotti at Oregon and later moved into an already established Ohio State system. “I don’t know if he’s ever built anything from the ground up,” McCarron mused, highlighting Kelly’s struggles at UCLA and his tumultuous runs with the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers.
The conversation turned particularly sharp when discussing Kelly’s NFL legacy. JB reminded listeners of Kelly’s time with the Eagles, accusing him of “ruining” the team by trading away star players like LeSean “Shady” McCoy and DeSean Jackson. “He traded away all the star players… and they lost,” JB asserted. He also noted that Kelly’s reliance on his “Oregon cats” in the NFL draft was a sign of a coach who couldn’t adapt beyond his initial success.
Perhaps the most shocking part of the interview was the revelation of a deep-seated personal animosity between Coach JB and Chip Kelly. JB admitted that the two “hate each other” and that it’s a “known thing” in coaching circles. When AJ McCarron joked about what would happen if the two ever came to blows, JB’s response was characteristically intense. He claimed he would “never show his face again” if the “fat, slow, and sloppy” Kelly ever managed to land a punch on him. JB even went as far as to describe the specific medical injuries he would theoretically inflict on Kelly in a fight, highlighting just how personal the feud has become.
Beyond the insults, the analysts questioned the fit at Northwestern. While McCarron wondered if the university is finally putting significant money into its football program—including the construction of a new “cute” stadium on Lake Michigan—he remains skeptical of Kelly’s ability to coordinate a room from “Day 1.” “Can he like go through and install again?” McCarron asked. “Give the protections, the play actions… I’m trying to figure that out.”
The “cringe vibes” surrounding the hire, as Vinnie put it on the show, seem to stem from a feeling that Kelly is simply “cycling through” jobs without delivering on the revolutionary promise he once showed at Oregon. For Northwestern, a program that has historically prioritized stability and “smart football,” bringing in a lightning rod like Kelly is a gamble of the highest order.
As Chip Kelly prepares to move to Evanston, the ghosts of his past failures in Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Las Vegas continue to haunt him. Whether he can reinvent himself one more time in the Big 10 remains to be seen. But if you ask Coach JB and AJ McCarron, the move is less about a “football mastermind” and more about a coach who knows exactly how to navigate the system—mask or no mask. For fans of the show, the message was clear: Chip Kelly might have the six million, but in the court of football opinion, his credit is rapidly running out.
