It’s a new day in Westwood. Gone are everything Bruin fans have hated for years: Gene Block, Chip Kelly, where he’s Northwestern’s new OC LOL, DeShaun Foster, who’s still somewhere in LA, and Martin Jarmond. Now, UCLA has Julio Frenk, Tim Harris and, perhaps most importantly, Bob Chesney. Talk about a house cleaning.
While Chancellor Frenk and pro bono AD Harris may ultimately have some decisions to make with respect to the basketball program at some point down the road, it’s Chesney time right now.
Before we dive into some media interview, UCLA Magazine has a great but lengthy profile on Bob Chesney which is definitely worth checking out if you haven’t seen it already. As I read it, there were definitely Woodenesque comments in the article from Coach Chesney. One of my favorites was this one: “We’ve talked about some goals, but ultimately, we really should be process driven, not outcome driven.” It sounds like a more modern version of “Success is the peace of mind in knowing you’ve become the best you are capable of becoming.” The comparison is simple. Both quotes don’t care about wins and losses. Instead, Chesney and Wooden care about putting in the work to be the best.
Chesney is also fond of a quote from Mark Batterson, a pastor and the author of A Trip Around the Sun, who wrote in that book “The leading cause of success is well-managed failure, and the leading cause of failure is mismanaged success.” Chesney used the quote at his introductory press conference as well as during his interview with Sean Brenner for UCLA Magazine.
Anyway, it’s definitely worth taking a few minutes before kickoff to read that article. Let’s get to this week’s interviews and see what’s been getting said at this week’s UCLA football press conferences. I’m just going to share these here all in the same place to make it easy for our readers to watch them if you haven’t already. The videos in this article are courtesy of UCLA Athletics on YouTube unless noted otherwise.
We’ll start like we always do with the head coach. Coach Chesney began his press conference on Tuesday discussing the Martin Jarmond situation before moving on to Wyatt Mosier’s medical retirement and how Nico has progressed.
He also spoke about what he said to the team in terms of preparation for tonight:
The way I want to say it to them is that this is not special. This is important, right? And I think understanding that when you get to that game, it’s all important. All every game as that we play is important. game one of the season is, you know, obviously, uh, extremely important, but at the same point in time, um, you know, I want them to continue to focus on what they have to do on a day-to-day basis out here, a play-to-play basis out here, and just understand that whatever they’re doing is going to affect that game on Saturday. You want to walk on the field that Saturday understanding that you did everything in your power to be prepared.
He also met with the media on Monday where he spoke a lot about how they will adapt to things because they are facing a new coaching staff on the other side of the field. One of the things Coach Chesney was asked about was if he heard about Calimony. He responded by saying:
Yeah, I heard. I sure have. Yep. I think it is what it is. I don’t know if I would have agreed to that, but that’s I guess how it all went down.
One way you can tell that it’s a new day for UCLA football is that Coach Chesney’s assistants don’t have a muzzle on them the way Chip Kelly’s did. On Wednesday, Offensive Coordinator Dean Kennedy and Defensive Coordinator Colin Hitschler met with the media. Let’s look at Coach Kennedy’s interview first.
One of the things Coach Kennedy spoke about was the challenge of game one being the uncertainty of knowing what the opponent is going to do, and more importantly, how making adjustments determines who will win. Coach Kennedy said:
I think any first game, everybody deals with the same challenges. It doesn’t matter if it’s them to us, us to them. So everybody…it’s like when it rains out, everybody’s dealing with a wet surface. It’s no different. So, by no means, are we looking at that as an excuse, but that is part of game one that every coaching staff deals with.
They might have completely changed their defense. They may not. They might run stuff from that they ran last year. They may not. They might bring stuff from the Vikings. They may not. Like, who knows, right? And that’s what I think the biggest, thing that we have to understand is that the mid-game adjustments, that’s how you win this ball game, right? Especially on game one. And it goes for everybody, right? The players recognizing what are they trying to do and us recognizing and everybody getting on the same page.
A UCLA coach actually discussing mid-game adjustments? How refreshing!
He also spoke about how having different types of running backs and tight ends helps him get more creative offensively. Kennedy explained:
You never want in my opinion…you talk about I’ve said this before, tight ends and running backs. You don’t want the same body type, right? You don’t want the same person.
You want things to be able to do different things. And I think those two position groups, we have a multitude of tight ends and running backs that offer a lot of different things and have different strengths and one person’s weakness might be someone else’s strength. And what that allows you to do is get really creative in all honesty.
Get creative of where you put them in formationally. Get creative of the type of schemes that you do.
And like I said, I think those two positions are the ones that you can that get you can do a lot of things, you know what I mean? A tight end and running back, they typically align in the core, the running back’s next to the quarterback, however it is, right? And now when you can spread them out, put them both in the back…whatever it is that you do…I just think those positions can put a lot of stress on a defense.
Coach Hitschler also spoke about making in-game adjustments. He said:
I think we’ve been able to kind of paint a picture of what we think it’s going to look like and uh, obviously like any game one, you got to adjust.
Like Kennedy, he talked about having guys with different skill sets being able to make a difference. He explained:
Sometimes, the second string guy at that position does different things well than the first thing guy. So, you got to know that and kind of put that puzzle together as a coach as well. And I think the guys have really embraced their roles and I think we’re going to have a lot of people make a variety of different plays on Saturday.
DB Rodrick Pleasant and running back Jaivian Thomas were the players interviewed this week. While both players spoke about the journey through camp to get this point, it was the final thing that Rod said which really stood out. He was asked about what it would mean for the program to start off 1-0. His response tells you all you need to know:
I think it’s exciting. Um, we’re going to get out there and compete. That’s the biggest thing. Um, we’re worried about we’re worried about the process right now.
We’re not worried about the outcome. The process…what we do Monday through Friday will lead to the outcome we want on Saturdays.
Obviously, that connects back to what Coach Chesney has been emphasizing as far as being process driven, not outcome driven, and it’s good to hear.
While that’s all for this week’s pre-game interviews, I’m adding a few more interviews just to help you catch up in case you missed some of these.
If you aren’t pumped up by now to watch this team play tonight, I don’t know what will get you pumped up. Just in case you need one more thing to help pump you up, I’m going to wrap this up with the official 2026 UCLA Football Trailer.
Are you ready for some football now?
Go Bruins!!!
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