In the winter of 2007, Mike Bellotti was struggling to ignite his offense at Oregon.
The Ducks football coach had tinkered with the spread formation but, after a couple of seasons, wasn’t getting the results he wanted. So he went looking for help.
Oregon hired a 43-year-old assistant named Chip Kelly who had spent years quietly developing a version of the up-tempo scheme at tiny New Hampshire.
“My philosophy has been to coach an attacking style of football,” Kelly said at the time. “And stretch the defenses in as many different ways as you can.