Florida reportedly moves on from Chip Kelly, and UCLA seems his likely destination

Per Yahoo Sports, Florida is pulling out of the Chip Kelly sweepstakes and the Gators will now focus on UCF coach Scott Frost.

With Kelly out of the picture, the Gators likely will focus on Central Florida coach Scott Frost. All along, the second-year coach of the Knights has been on Florida’s radar and was considered within the industry to be the most likely successor to Jim McElwain in Gainesville. Frost’s undefeated UCF team is playing South Florida on Friday afternoon for the title in the American Athletic Conference East Division.

Earlier in the week, the race for Kelly expanded to include UCLA. According to ESPN’s Mark Schlabach, Kelly met with UCLA on Tuesday, and is expected to make his decision in the coming days:

Former UCLA quarterback Troy Aikman, a member of the school’s search committee, is putting a “full-court press” on Kelly to accept the UCLA job, the source said.

Kelly, 53, isn’t expected to consider any other college openings.

SB Nation has also confirmed through a source close to the hiring process that Kelly met with UCLA on Tuesday. The UCLA job opened on Sunday while Florida administrators were en route to meet with Kelly in New Hampshire.

CBS Sports adds that a decision from Kelly on his future “is expected to come as soon as Sunday.”

Kelly is an unconventional thinker. It’s what made his offenses so groundbreaking in Eugene. But it is also what makes the process to hire him so unpredictable. He’s the type of job candidate who will move at his own speed, and only after he’s exhaustively vetted all options in front of him.

Pros: Any observer of the Dan Guerrero era of UCLA sports knows that each coaching search begins with the courting of a big name, and this year’s big-name coach is Chip Kelly. To be absolutely fair, Chip Kelly is the type of home-run hire that would take UCLA to the next level. He’s a proven winner at the college level, with a dynamic offense that could really take advantage of incoming recruit Dorian Thompson-Robinson’s skillset (to say nothing of current backup and former 4-star recruit Devon Modster). Kelly is THE hot coaching name at the moment, but UCLA does apparently have some advantages here that we’ll talk about in a different section. As an additional plus, Kelly is still being paid a truckload of money by the San Francisco 49ers, so salary may not be as big of an issue in this case as in other options.

Cons: There are reasons to be wary of Chip Kelly, as with any coach. Kelly’s stint in the NFL was not the best, as he struggled to adapt his system to the NFL. It has been 5 years since Kelly coached in college, which is certainly another factor to consider. The biggest factor against Kelly is the show-cause penalty he received after leaving Oregon. The report is that the Oregon program paid a 7-on-7 coach $25,000 to help guide players to their program. Kelly’s personal show-cause penalty has expired, but this is something to consider, especially in light of the FBI investigations into college basketball corruption revealed last month.

If Kelly does in fact pick the Bruins, it makes the move to fire Jim Mora when they did look pretty shrewd.