The 2025 UCLA football season quickly became a disaster. The Bruins finished 3-9, and after starting 0-3, they fired DeShaun Foster. The Bruins were in desperate need of someone to breathe life into a football program that has not seen much excitement recently. They went out and hired Bob Chesney from James Madison, and he instantly brought a spark to what the Bruins want to do on the field.
In Bob Chesney's introductory press conference at UCLA, he took shots at USC. He said that the Bruins need to be the premier program in Los Angeles, and that the exact expectations his team had at James Madison for making the College Football Playoff are the same ones they will have at UCLA.
“We don’t need to be the other school in town,” Chesney said, “we need to be the school in this town, and I promise you that will happen very soon.”
Chesney is juggling two jobs at the moment. He is leading James Madison at the moment as they prepare for the College Football Playoff and will coach the Dukes until they lose in the postseason.
He wants to bring the success he had with James Madison to UCLA. He agreed to a five-year, $33.75-million contract that will pay him an annual salary of $6.75 million and wants to hit the ground running with the Bruins in Westwood.
“Those same dreams,” Chesney said of what he’s done with the Dukes, “are the exact dreams we will have here.”
The coach search committee was a who's who of Bruin alumni, including Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, executive Bob Myers, Casey Wasserman, and more notable UCLA alums.
Myers said it was an honor to be part of the search and try to help the Bruins get better.
“What stood out with Bob was that he won in a variety of places and shown the ability to lead and win in places where it was hard to win,” said Myers, who was at the introductory news conference. “UCLA, although it has all these national championships, we have struggled in football recently. To get someone we thought could build a program was important. Someone we felt could be here for 20 years and someone who wanted to be here for 20 years.”
The Bruins need a lot of help in football and have not finished with double-digit wins since 2014 under Jim Mora. Chesney has a proven track record, but it will be a big step up going from James Madison to UCLA. Chesney replaced Curt Cignetti at James Madison but managed to maintain the Dukes' success and is bringing that to UCLA.
