{"id":785808,"date":"2026-07-26T17:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T17:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/785808\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T17:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T17:22:12","slug":"bob-chesney-is-going-to-do-the-impossible-at-ucla-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/785808\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Chesney is going to do the impossible at UCLA \u2014 win"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Walking down a hallway at UCLA<\/a>\u2019s Wasserman Football Center earlier this week, I became a believer. <\/p>\n

Bouncing hurriedly in my direction was a bright-eyed kid with a huge smile. I didn\u2019t know him. He didn\u2019t know me.<\/p>\n

Yet as he passed, he suddenly stuck out his hand for a fist bump, which I was too stunned to ignore, and so I pounded back while wondering.<\/p>\n

What just happened?<\/p>\n

Then it hit me.<\/p>\n

Bob Chesney<\/a> just happened.<\/p>\n

\"UCLA <\/p>\n

New UCLA football coach Bob Chesney has won over cynics with his unflinching optimism and attention to detail.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The new football coach has infused the completely rebuilt program into a place so energetic, his players run around sharing their inspiration to complete strangers.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, we\u2019re gonna win here,\u201d Chesney says.<\/p>\n

This shared spirit starts every morning in this building, in the team meeting room, where Chesney orders his players to stand and sing the school fight song as if they are standing on the field after a victory.<\/p>\n

The words to the song are displayed on a giant screen, which increasingly isn\u2019t used because most of his players have now learned the song by heart. Those who fail to sing get tagged with a red laser pointer, so pretty much everyone croons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not gonna let people put limits on us,\u201d Chesney says. \u201cI\u2019m not gonna let them tell us what we can and can\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n

This shared spirit continues deep into the night, as some of his players recently had a pool party at the home of Cori Close, the Bruins national championship women\u2019s basketball coach<\/a>. She was not teaching them how to swim. She was teaching them how to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople say why here?\u201d Chesney says. \u201cI say, why not here?\u201d<\/p>\n

He shows up for my early afternoon visit last week dressed uniquely for a $33.75 million coach of a Big Ten school on the outskirts of Hollywood.<\/p>\n

He is dressed like a player. Black shirt, black shorts, thin sheen of sweat adorning his expressive forehead.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeen lifting weights,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Are weight machines set aside for the coaches?<\/p>\n

\u201cLifting with the players,\u201d he says. \u201cThese guys are telling me what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UCLA <\/p>\n

UCLA coach Bob Chesney stands on the field in between players and shouts instructions during a spring practice.<\/p>\n

(Robert Gauthier\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Full disclosure: I arranged my visit full of skepticism about this guy that has UCLA fans swooning.<\/p>\n

C\u2019mon. Seriously? He\u2019s ready for this? How can he be ready for this?<\/p>\n

The son of a small-town high school football coach in Pennsylvania coal country, Chesney had risen from obscurity to \u2026 more obscurity. He had previously coached at four different small schools you couldn\u2019t find on a map. Salve Regina? Assumption? What?<\/p>\n

This will be Chesney\u2019s first shot under the bright lights. And he is taking that shot with a program whose best shots couldn\u2019t hit the broad side of a barn.<\/p>\n

The Bruins have not been to the Rose Bowl game in 28 years, and he is going to fix that? They have not won a Rose Bowl game in 41 years, and he was going to change that culture?<\/p>\n

The celebrated Chip Kelly couldn\u2019t do it. The emotional Jim Mora Jr. couldn\u2019t do it. The cheerleading Rick Neuheisel couldn\u2019t do it. The cerebral Karl Dorrell couldn\u2019t do it. The affable Bob Toledo thought he had done it until his team inexplicably quit on him just 60 minutes from a berth in the national championship game.<\/p>\n

I had covered all of these coaches, hearing their annual promises, seeing their annual collapses, realizing USC had a stranglehold on the college football money and attention in this town, and I had come up with an inescapable conclusion.<\/p>\n

What Chesney is trying to do with UCLA football can\u2019t be done.<\/p>\n

Then I met him.<\/p>\n

The best word to describe initial impressions of the 48-year-old former college safety would be, wow.<\/p>\n

He talks fast. He oozes belief. He sells UCLA. He sells himself. He doesn\u2019t shrink from his giant task. He doesn\u2019t rationalize or equivocate his team\u2019s sordid history.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s like one of those charming smart kids who never takes no for an answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel it,\u201d he says.\u201dI feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n

No wonder his recruiting has been phenomenal, ranked seventh nationwide for the class of 2027, a trend that began this summer with 42 transfers, many of whom will start. No wonder he has been recognized by fans while hanging out in West Hollywood or Griffith Observatory or Dodger Stadium, where he\u2019s already sat wide-eyed in a meeting with Dodger manager and UCLA grad Dave Roberts<\/a> and Sandy Koufax.<\/p>\n

He feels it, and the Bruin Nation feels it with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody\u2019s included,\u201d he says. \u201cYou wanna be included? C\u2019mon, you\u2019re included.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the self-proclaimed driver of the Bruin bandwagon in recent years \u2014 only to be derailed by midseason every time \u2014 I\u2019ll pass on the inclusion. I\u2019ve got to see it before buying it. But right now, Chesney has worked me up into such a lather that, yeah, I\u2019m believing.<\/p>\n

First, Chesney points to his resume, a litany of small schools who accumulated big victories, a dossier that includes only one losing season and none in the last seven years.<\/p>\n

His head coaching career started at Division III Salve Regina (Rhode Island), where he turned eight consecutive losing seasons into three straight winning seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018You can\u2019t win there, nobody can win there\u2019 is what they said,\u201d Chesney says. \u201cWe won there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"James <\/p>\n

James Madison coach Bob Chesney and running back Wayne Knight celebrate after winning the Sun Belt championship on Dec. 5 in Harrisonburg, Va.<\/p>\n

(Robert Simmons \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Then there was Division II Assumption in Massachusetts, where he took a team that had two winning records in 17 years and led them to five consecutive winning records and three straight playoff appearances.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018You can\u2019t do it, nobody can do it,\u2019\u2019\u2019 Chesney says. \u201cWe did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there was Holy Cross, also in Massachusetts, where he took the team to a record five straight Patriot League championships while advancing as deep as the FCS quarterfinals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey told us, \u2018The academics are too tough, the tuition is too high, you can\u2019t win there,\u2019\u2019\u2019 Chesney recounts. \u201cWe won there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally there was James Madison in Virginia, where he took a team whose stars had all followed Curt Cignetti to Indiana and still triumphed, leading them to a Cinderella appearance in the College Football Playoff.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people doubted it, a lot of people didn\u2019t believe it could work,\u201d Chesney says. \u201cWe\u2019ve proved a lot of people wrong throughout the years.\u201d<\/p>\n

After his resume, Chesney points to his surroundings. He is more awed by UCLA\u2019s gravitas than any other football coach I can remember. It\u2019s clear he can sell the school because he has such respect for the school.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere you\u2019re a handshake away from changing your life \u2026 the school has an 8% acceptance rate, you\u2019re walking around this campus with valedictorians and future CEOs and doctors and lawyers,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019re surrounded by greatness, you have a chance to breathe this rare air that very few people get a chance to breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for Chesney to fill this air with a football championship requires a price. It is a price that, so far, many potential donors have been reluctant to pay. But in today\u2019s college football world, it is the cost of doing business.<\/p>\n

Face it, Cignetti couldn\u2019t have changed Indiana\u2019s fortunes so rapidly if it wasn\u2019t for Mark Cuban money<\/a>. Chesney believes he can do the same thing here \u2026 with a little push.<\/p>\n

Longtime UCLA donor Angelo Mazzone chipped in $10 million recently, and more such gifts are needed for UCLA to be able to pay the players that bring them a championship.<\/p>\n

\u201dThere\u2019s a major financial commitment that comes with getting those four- and five-star kids, but we can really turn the tables with that kind of help,\u201d Chesney says. \u201cEvery single thing that is needed is here, we just have to make sure we get the support from the people on the outside that we need to actualize our dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UCLA <\/p>\n

UCLA coach Bob Chesney shares his vision for the program during his introductory news conference on Dec. 9.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

He\u2019s doing all the right things while chasing that dream.<\/p>\n

Even as his bosses are pushing to move the team out of the Rose Bowl to SoFi Stadium, he loves the Rose Bowl, and took his team there for its spring game on a weekend that began with him standing outside the brightly lit marquee with his father and his son in the dark.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was one of those moments, I was like, man, the history of this place \u2026 to me to play in the Rose Bowl, what an honor and a privilege,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The game actually drew a decent spring crowd of 10,000-12,000, partially because Chesney had worked so hard at banging the drum. He and his players even brought pizzas to various campus groups in hopes of enlisting support.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to be around this program, you can be around this program,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s his opinion of USC<\/a>. He doesn\u2019t have one. He never mentions them. For a UCLA coach, this is a good thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess we\u2019re perceived to be in their shadow, and for whatever reasons we weren\u2019t an option the last couple of years, but look at our recruiting, I know we\u2019re becoming an option for L.A. again,\u201d Chesney says. \u201cI think you can change a lot of people\u2019s opinions on who they want to be rooting for.\u201d<\/p>\n

As in all levels of football, it all comes down to the quarterback, and Chesney had his first win by convincing budding star Nico Iamaleava<\/a>. The kid was roundly criticized in this space for holding out and then walking out on his Tennessee team last year, but he has since grown up, and could be the sort of game-changer that Chesney requires.<\/p>\n

\u201cWatching Nico with his athletic ability, his arm, creating plays after the play with his legs, I have very high hopes,\u201d says Chesney.<\/p>\n

There are potentially outstanding transfers at half of the positions, and, with some solid returning players \u2014 this is a team that beat seventh-ranked Penn State, remember \u2014 the Bruins have a decent foundation.<\/p>\n

\"UCLA <\/p>\n

UCLA coach Bob Chesney pats running back Anthony Woods on the helmet during the team\u2019s spring game at the Rose Bowl on May 2.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Throw in a favorable 2026 schedule that doesn\u2019t include Ohio State or Penn State or Washington or Iowa, and one thinks they might even have a chance at making some miracles.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to see a different brand of football, one that is united, that is passionate, that is physical, that is tough, that has a lot of fun playing together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re also going to hear a sound that died in the brief DeShaun Foster era, a sound that has never lasted more than a couple of weeks in the last 30 years.<\/p>\n

That rumble is the Bruin football bandwagon. It\u2019s revving up again. The inimitable force that is Bob Chesney wants to include you on the start of its journey.<\/p>\n

Let him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Walking down a hallway at UCLA\u2019s Wasserman Football Center earlier this week, I became a believer. Bouncing hurriedly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[3345,158485,334288,399,334289,1506,3591,398,396,397,3590,15553,3859,58019,3858,99,1599,20737,4200,2394],"class_list":["post-785808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-basketball-coach","tag-bob-chesney","tag-college-football-money","tag-football","tag-football-championship","tag-hollywood","tag-lot","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-people","tag-player","tag-program","tag-rose-bowl-game","tag-school","tag-sports","tag-team","tag-ucla","tag-win","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}