Greg Beacham Associated Press

By Andrew Greif, The Oregonian/OregonLive

In Chip Kelly’s debut season as a collegiate head coach, he led Oregon to the Rose Bowl.

Nine years, two NFL jobs and a brief ESPN commentating gig later, Kelly is back in college for Pac-12 go ‘round number two, and if he accomplishes another first-season Rose Bowl while at UCLA, he would join Tommy Prothro as the only Bruins coaches to have accomplished that.

Prothro’s 1965 season in Westwood remains the gold standard for a first season by a UCLA football coach, with his successors hit-or-miss ever since. The seven coaches who have led the Bruins since Prothro averaged 5.8 wins in their first season. Jim Mora, the man Kelly is replacing, was among the best of the bunch with nine wins in 2012. He followed that with a pair of 10-win seasons but could never match those levels of success again in his final three years, leading to his firing and Kelly’s hiring.

Kelly had unprecedented success right from the start in Eugene. Can he do it again in Southern California?

The Oregonian/OregonLive’s 2018 Pac-12 football preview continues today with the first of our South Division installments: The UCLA Bruins.

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Jim Mora was 46-30 in six seasons.

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1. Last season recap

If the Bruins’ 2017 season was largely forgettable, their opener was not. Trailing by 34 points with 19 minutes remaining in regulation, UCLA scored touchdowns its final five possessions to stun Texas A&M in a 45-44 win that was the program’s largest comeback. After a 56-23 win over Hawaii, UCLA lost three of its next four — at Memphis on Sept. 16, at Stanford (by 24 points, in the Bruins’ 10th consecutive loss to the Cardinal) on Sept. 23 and, after a narrow win over Colorado, at Arizona on Oct. 14 to drop its record to 3-3. In the Arizona loss, UCLA allowed quarterback Khalil Tate to emerge onto the national scene with 230 rushing yards and 148 passing yards.

The Bruins shut down Oregon’s ineffective offense in an Oct. 21 home win, before losing to Washington and Utah in consecutive weeks by a combined score of 92-40 that left UCLA 4-6. The regular season ended with a Nov. 11 home win over Arizona State, a Nov. 18 loss to cross-town rival USC and a three-point Nov. 24 win vs. Cal. Quarterback Josh Rosen elected not to play in the Dec. 26 Cactus Bowl, a 35-17 loss to Kansas State.

Coach Jim Mora was fired Nov. 19, one day after the loss to the Trojans.

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2. Superlatives

Leading returning rusher: Bolu Olorunfunmi is coming off a 565-yard season (4.8 per carry) that led the Bruins and added five rushing touchdowns. He also caught 10 passes for 118 yards.

Leading returning passer: Devon Modster played in five games, including a start in the Cactus Bowl against Kansas State, and completed 64.5 percent of his 79 attempts for 671 yards with four touchdowns and no interceptions.

Leading returning receiver: Theo Howard caught 56 passes for 594 yards and four touchdowns, marks that were all third-most on the team.

Leading returning tackler: Safety Adarius Pickett, second on the team with 85 tackles last fall.

Leading returning defensive back: Pickett. He's on the watch list for the Lott IMPACT Trophy.

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3. Returning all-conference players

None.

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4. Key losses

Quarterback Josh Rosen, the NFL's 10th overall pick, and offensive lineman Kolton Miller, the 15th overall pick, each were first-round selections in the NFL draft. First-team all-conference linebacker Kenny Young was UCLA’s leading tackler last season and defensive back Jaleel Wadood ranked third in stops. Receiver Jordan Lasley led UCLA with 1,264 yards, ninth-most nationally, and had nine receiving touchdowns. Receiver Darren Andrews also is gone, meaning the offense’s top two pass-catchers are gone. Andrews was an honorable mention all-conference player, joining offensive linemen Scott Quessenberry and Najee Toran and defensive lineman Jacob Tuioti-Mariner, who all are now gone, too.

In addition to the loss of marquee names, 11 Bruins have left the team either for medical retirements, transfers or other reasons.

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5. Breakout candidates

At Oregon, no matter whether a quarterback had a lot or a little of recruiting buzz, Kelly found a way to turn them into stars, beginning with Dennis Dixon’s transformation and ending with the development of a low-rated recruit named Marcus Mariota. That bodes well for whoever earns the starting role in Westwood. There are quite a few candidates and the competition should last well into August. Freshman Dorian Thompson-Robinson arrives from Las Vegas as one of the 2018 class’s top dual-threat recruits, and Wilson Speight arrives from Michigan as a grad transfer. Then there’s Modster, who played in relief of Rosen last season against California and Kansas State. If the QB is playing well, that will likely mean good things for the leading returning receiver, Theo Howard.

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Bo Rader

Nate Meadors (22).

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Running back Joshua Kelly had a nice spring and averaged five yards a carry in the spring game, a day when the defenses otherwise played well. Receiver Demetric Felton gained yards in chunks on fly sweeps last season and his potential usage in Kelly’s offense has drawn comparisons to De’Anthony Thomas, and Soso Jamabo, the No. 2 back a year ago, also is back. Kicker J.J. Molson had a nice spring.

Inside linebacker Josh Woods had 30 tackles and 3.5 tackles for loss but missed last season’s final six games with an injury. Cornerback Nate Meadors had 55 tackles and fellow corner Darnay Holmes had three interceptions. Defensive end Chigozie Nnoruk leads all returners in tackles for loss with 8.5 last season.

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6. A strength

Many of the questions surrounding Kelly’s hire centered on whether college football had caught up to and surpassed the offensive wizardry he’d achieved while at Oregon. There, his combination of pace and spread offenses caught opponents by surprise at first or eventually ground others down over the course of four quarters. Now that kind of attack is the rule, not the exception, across college football. Can Kelly out-innovate opponents again, or just out-execute? Either way, don’t count Kelly out. His track record in college speaks for itself.

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7. A weakness

Logic would indicate there’s but one way for UCLA’s defense to go this season — up the NCAA rankings. Last season the unit was a sieve, ranking 122nd in yards allowed, 116th in points allowed, 111th in turnovers gained and dead last in rushing yards allowed out of 129 FBS teams. In the spring, the defense talked of practicing with an aggressive mentality and that could help with forcing more turnovers — in the spring game, the defenses intercepted three passes and recovered a fumble. But while it’s a good bet the Bruins should improve in 2018 in new coordinator Jerry Azzinaro’s 3-4 base defense, it’s also fair not to expect this unit to morph into a top-25 defense overnight. After the bottom falls out, how high can the ceiling be? That’s the question this fall, and the schedule does UCLA no favors with games against Oklahoma, Washington, USC, Oregon and Stanford.

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8. 2018 recruiting ranking

UCLA’s class ranked 18th nationally and fourth in the Pac-12, per 247Sports composite ranking. Its highest-rated recruit is dual-threat quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson but also added four-star wideout Chase Cota from Medford, a top UO target.

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Chase Allgood

South Medford product and UCLA receiver Chase Cota

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Thomas Boyd, 2009

Jerry Azzinaro has coached with Chip Kelly at Oregon, in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers and now at UCLA, where he is defensive coordinator.

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9. Coaching changes

Chip Kelly was hired Nov. 25 and quickly brought two of his former assistants at Oregon with him: Don Pellum, to coach linebackers, and Jerry Azzinaro, as defensive coordinator. Initially, Kelly kept four holdovers from Mora’s staff: Receivers coach Jimmie Dougherty (a one-time UO assistant himself, for about eight weeks until February 2017), running backs coach DeShaun Foster, tight end coach Angus McClure and offensive line coach Hank Fraley. McClure and Fraley eventually left and were replaced by Derek Sage (tight ends) from Washington State, and Justin Frye (offensive line) from Boston College.

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Thomas Boyd

Don Pellum, the longtime former Oregon assistant, spent 2017 out of coaching before reuniting with Chip Kelly at UCLA, where Pellum will coach linebackers.

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The rest of the staff includes Dana Bible (quarterbacks), a former offensive coordinator at Boston College and NC State who worked under Kelly with the San Francisco 49ers in 2016; defensive line coach Vincent Oghobaase, who also worked for Kelly with the 49ers; outside linebackers and special teams coach Roy Manning, who spent the last three years at Washington State; and defensive backs coach Paul Rhoads, the former Iowa State head coach.

In addition, there are two more UO connection: Former Ducks Ramsen Golpashin and Nate Costa are serving as a graduate assistant and offensive analyst, respectively.

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Luis Sinco

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10. Schedule (all times PT)

Sept. 1 vs. Cincinnati (4 p.m., ESPN)

Sept. 8 at Oklahoma (10 a.m., FOX)

Sept. 15 vs. Fresno State (7:30 p.m., FS1)

Sept. 28 at Colorado (6 p.m., FS1)

Oct. 6 vs. Washington

Oct. 13 at Cal

Oct. 20 vs. Arizona

Oct. 26 vs. Utah

Nov. 3 at Oregon

Nov. 10 at Arizona State

Nov. 17 USC

Nov. 24 vs. Stanford

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Pac-12 previews

Catch up with our previous 2018 previews of the Pac-12 football season:

Stanford: Is a second straight North crown in Cardinal's sights?

Cal: Hope returns in Berkeley after Wilcox's first season

Washington: Could opening game springboard Huskies into CFP discussion?



Washington State: How much will Cougars' turnover impact program?

Oregon: Can Ducks take advantage with their promising defense, QB and schedule?

Oregon State: Jonathan Smith's rebuild begins

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Mike Christy

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Next up

Tomorrow: Chip Kelly isn't the only new coach in the South division. Checking in on Kevin Sumlin and the Arizona Wildcats.