Report: Chip Kelly, UCLA to hire Virginia Director of Football Performance Frank Wintrich

According to Jamie Oakes of Wahoos247, Virginia’s Director of Football Performance Frank Wintrick is about to be hired away by Chip Kelly, who was hired as the UCLA Bruins’ new head football coach in November.

Wintrich joined the Virginia Cavaliers coaching staff in 2016, following Bronco Mendenhall from BYU. He had joined Mendenhall’s staff in 2015, and had previously served in a similar strength & conditioning role at various other schools. At The Citadel, Wintrich oversaw the strength and conditioning of all 15 programs.

As Oakes notes, Wintrich had a reported salary of $150,000 at Virginia, which ranks as the lowest among strength coaches at the eight ACC schools that reported. (If all bonuses were achieved, Wintrich would make slightly more than Georgia Tech and Louisville’s strength coaches.) As a general matter, Virginia’s assistant coaches collectively make the least among the eight ACC schools, which include Clemson, Florida State, NC State, Virginia Tech, Louisville, North Carolina and Georgia Tech, in order.

Meanwhile, former UCLA strength coach Sal Alosi made a reported $410,000 per year, which ranks as the highest among Pac-12 schools.

This comes off the heels of the announcement that Mendenhall has hired UTSA’s Ricky Brumfield to coach special teams, a role previously held by Kelly Poppinga. Earlier this year, the NCAA announced that FBS teams would be allowed a 10th on-field assistant coach, so Brumsfield’s hire and Wintrich’s reported departure are likely unrelated.

Most importantly (probably), Wintrich was responsible for bringing Diamond Dallas Page to bring his DDP Yoga program to supplement the team’s training. That alone is a big loss for the Hoos.

We didn’t expect the coaching carousel to hit Virginia very hard during this offseason, but here we are, with two changes already. Stay tuned to Streaking the Lawn for more as we watch who might fill Wintrich’s opening, if reports pan out to be true.