The 2025 UCLA football season has already been a disaster, and we are only three games in. The Bruins fired head coach DeShaun Foster after three games into his second season. The UCLA job has a lot of history and should be able to attract some high-profile names across the board, but they have a lot of work to do to try to fix this.
ESPN College Football Senior Writer Pete Thamel went on the College GameDay Podcast to discuss the opening and who might be available for the Bruins to grab. Thamel reported that PJ Fleck was a big target last time and might be the top target again. Jedd Fisch is another target that Thamel brought up, with both being coaches within the Big Ten that the Bruins are interested in. he also said that the goal is to hire a proven coach.
“So what I know about UCLA is they’re going to hire an opposite, and they’re going to hire a proven coach,” Thamel stated. “Now, they’re going to have to do that financially. The name that came up last time in the search, and went some distance, but they didn’t have the finances to pull it off, was P.J. Fleck. He’s an intriguing energy bolt because he would go in there and make them relevant. He just would, by force of nature and the way he goes.
“Jedd Fisch’s name will come up. He was the interim coach there when [Jim] Mora got fired. He has ties to Casey Wasserman, who’s the top booster there. And then, look, guys like Dan Mullen—guys who’ve done it. It’ll be an interesting litmus test of the division between the Power Two and everybody else.”
“How many Big 12 coaches — does Dave Aranda have interest in going home, because he sees the gap opening. UCLA would be a pretty good cultural fit for him. He’s done fairly well, but he’s not crushing it. So it might be like a slide back west, go-home type move. So I think those are the prototypes. Mullen obviously just beat them, and he’s a proven winner.”
PJ Fleck's question would be whether he wants to move west. Fleck has never coached out west, but is an energy booster and won the Big Ten Coach of the Year in 2019. In comparison, Jedd Fisch coached at UCLA and the Los Angeles Rams and has had other stops out west.
The big question will be whether UCLA has the resources to attract either Fleck or Fisch or whether Mullen and Aranda would even consider moving west.
