UCLA Football 2025 Coaching Hot Board 1.0

The clock is now ticking on UCLA making the most pivotal hire in its history.

Jonathan Smith, proving he is qualified to be UCLA's head coach, by pointing out that the school is in Los Angeles.

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Less than two years after putting together a football hot board following the departure of Chip Kelly, we’re back at it.

I don’t think it is hyperbole to suggest that this is the most important football hire in UCLA history. UCLA is teetering on the edge of irrelevance in college football, the result of decades of neglect from the school. While the program is currently safe in the Big Ten and able to take advantage of its large revenue stream, there is no guarantee of that continuing in the future - even now, schools are starting to jockey for position with 2030 in sight, when the next round of television contracts are signed, which could be the opening for a complete restructuring of the college athletics landscape towards the dreaded superconferences.

There is no two ways around it: UCLA needs to nail this hire just to stay relevant in the sport.

Now, the big question everyone has on their minds at this point is whether UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond will have any say in the process. During his press conference following the firing of Deshaun Foster, Jarmond intimated that he would be directly involved with the search for a new head coach. That said (and I am not reporting this as fact, just giving some info based on what I know), there is a very good chance that Jarmond will not be involved with the process, and may not even have direct control over football in the future.

With that said, go ahead and find somewhere comfortable to hang out, because this is going to be a long process. One of the reasons you fire a coach early in the season is to give your decision-makers a head start on the search, allowing them to make backchannel connections to various coaches to gauge interest and find out what those coaches are looking for in a job. We have a list here based on various names being thrown out in the aftermath of Foster’s firing, but there’s a good chance that the final list late in November looks completely different, as different coaches either make their intentions known or withdraw from consideration for various reasons. It’s also early enough in the process that a dark horse could appear, maybe some hot head coaching prospect or coordinator who makes it hard not to hire him (such as Dan Lanning when Oregon hired the then-Georgia assistant). This list is preliminary, and we’ll update it as the search progresses, but don’t expect a decision to be made for a few months at least.

Here’s the (very early) hot board.

The Early Favorites

Tony White

Current job: Defensive coordinator, Florida State

Here’s what I wrote the last time this job came open:

Tony White feels like the big hot name amongst UCLA insiders for a variety of reasons. For one, he has ties to UCLA, having played for the Bruins from 1997 to 2000 and working as a graduate assistant in 2007. In addition, White is a really good defensive coordinator. Last year, the Huskers ranked 6th in the country in defensive SP+. This is not a one-time occurrence, either; White took over at Syracuse in 2020 and got the Orange to improve from 46th in his first year to 24th by the time he left. White has ties to the region as well, having coached at Arizona State and San Diego State prior. Finally, White has a reputation as a good recruiter, having been named a top recruiter while at SDSU and with plenty of articles in recent history noting his recruiting prowess. Perhaps just as important, White spent last year getting a close look at Nebraska’s NIL machine, which just landed a top quarterback recruit in Dylan Raiola along with others for a recruiting class that is currently 18th in the country according to 247Sports with one five-star and seven four-stars.

There is always going to be some hesitancy to hire a head coach with no prior experience - after all, the last time the Bruins did this, we ended up with Karl Dorrell - but there is a lot to like about White’s resume and what he can bring to the program. As a former player with ties to the last truly great UCLA team, White can animate the older segments of the fanbase and get money flowing into UCLA’s NIL collective, and his defensive prowess would help continue the huge step forward made by the program last season.

Much of that still holds, though White has since moved to Florida State, where he already made an impact in shutting down Kalen DeBoer’s Alabama offense in the season opener.

The big con against Tony White is his lack of head coaching experience, and given what a disaster the Deshaun Foster era was, there may be some hesitancy with the decision-makers regarding giving another Bruin alum their first head coaching gig. But this is perhaps the only coordinator hire I think UCLA will seriously consider among the top-level candidates.

Jonathan Smith

Current job: Head coach, Michigan State

There’s an alternate universe out there where Jonathan Smith is already UCLA’s head coach, but in that universe, UCLA was proactive in firing Chip Kelly, unlike our current reality, where the school let Kelly engineer a hostage situation that only served to damage the program further.

Smith checks a lot of boxes for UCLA. He’s a proven program builder, having built up the last good Oregon State team and putting Michigan State on the right track so far. While his offenses don’t wow you, they are effective, and Smith's teams are known for being well-coached and fundamentally sound. He’s also a local boy; Smith is from Glendora and went to UCLA games at the Rose Bowl in his youth (though, crucially, he does not have other UCLA ties). We know Jonathan Smith had a high degree of interest in this job before, as he tried to wait out Chip Kelly before taking the Michigan State job rather than staying at Oregon State when the school was sent off to the wilderness following the dissolution of the Pac-12, and word in the agent community is that Smith will be interested again.

The big question with Smith is one of timing. If this job were opening up a year from now, Smith would be the #1 option with a bullet, and UCLA would likely have little trouble convincing him to come home. But given that Smith is only in his second year at Michigan State, it may be harder to convince him to leave the new project he started so soon. His buyout is reportedly cheap thanks to a clause in his contract that was activated after Michigan State fired the athletic director who hired him, which is a point in his favor as well to the famously budget-conscious UCLA brass.

Jedd Fisch

Current job: Head coach, Washington

Now we’re getting spicy. Jedd Fisch is a name familiar to many UCLA fans, both from his time as UCLA’s offensive coordinator during Jim Mora’s final season to his time leading Arizona and Washington. Fisch has proven himself to be a solid head coach, with a particular gift for recruiting despite lacking the resources of some of his rivals. There is definitely a subset of UCLA fans who believe he should have been the choice to take over from Mora instead of Chip Kelly (and honestly, they have a point, though it is hard to argue UCLA did not make the correct decision at that moment).

Fisch has the same con that Jonathan Smith has, in that he has only been at Washington for a little over a year. Still, that did not stop him from openly flirting with UCLA when Chip Kelly left last time, and it has been reported that Fisch’s family did not acclimate well to Seattle and has moved back to Arizona. Los Angeles was clearly to the Fisch family’s liking, and there are already rumblings that Fisch will be interested in this job again.

Intriguing Options

Matt Campbell

Current job: Head coach, Iowa State

Of all the names on this list, Matt Campbell is one of the most established and solid options around. The longtime Iowa State head coach has turned the normally moribund program into a perennial contender in the Big 12 after building Toledo into the MAC power it is today. Iowa State is again ranked this year and looks like an early frontrunner for the Big 12 yet again.

The reason Campbell is down in this spot and not in the category above is simple: no one knows if he’s willing to leave Ames. Campbell has coached at Iowa State for 10 years now, and while other programs have come calling, Campbell has yet to take them up on the offer. He’s a popular name thrown around the Midwest, especially should Michigan open up again, but he does seem to be patient and willing to wait for the right job to appear.

I think a few of the other knocks against Campbell (subpar recruiter, hasn’t won a conference title) can be handwaved away by the Iowa State of it all, but whether he’s willing to leave Ames is the biggest question, and the reason why Campbell will remain in this section.

Will Stein and Tosh Lupoi

Current job: Offensive and Defensive coordinator (respectfully), Oregon

You’ll notice that most of this list is filled with current head coaches. That’s partly because I think UCLA will prioritize head coaching experience after being burned so badly by the Foster hire, but that doesn’t mean they should dismiss rising coordinators out of hand. In fact, Oregon has two coordinators with very different value propositions that UCLA should be willing to consider.

For Will Stein, you’re taking a gamble that he ends up like Kenny Dillingham - a young, vibrant offensive mind who will work tirelessly to build a successful program. There’s no doubting Stein’s offensive mind, having gotten the best from Bo Nix and Dillon Gabriel (and looking to do the same with former Bruin Dante Moore). He’s also an excellent recruiter, and the hope would be that he picked up as many lessons as possible while working under Dan Lanning, one of the best coaches in the game currently.

Tosh Lupoi is a little different. His defenses are fine, not outstanding, but in Lupoi, you have a guy who understands the value of recruiting better than anyone, being known as one of the most elite recruiters on the West Coast. Lupoi would bring west coast knowledge that most of the other names on this list lack (Lupoi is a UC Berkeley alum, and coached both there and at Washington in addition to Oregon). Besides coaching under Lanning, Lupoi spent time as the defensive coordinator at Alabama under Nick Saban. In both cases, there was an understanding that the head coach would have a hand in designing the defensive strategy, but it is increasingly clear that Lupoi knows his stuff on that front.

The big knock against both guys: no head coaching experience. Lupoi is older and more veteran, so you’d think he would have more of a chance to break through that problem, but for both, this would be something that the UCLA administration would need to overlook.

Unsexy but Workmanlike

PJ Fleck

Current job: Head coach, Minnesota

File this one under “Unlikely, but not completely off the table.” We know Fleck was interested in the UCLA job the last time it opened, and while he ultimately decided the timing was not right to leave Minnesota then, the timing is certainly better now.

The problem for Fleck is that his program is still trending down since we last checked in with him. Minnesota was able to rebound last year to a 7-5 record, but last year’s team was decidedly average, and the continuity did not carry over into this year. You could make a reasonable argument that Minnesota is not set up to take advantage of the current NIL era, but if that is the case, it is hard to believe Fleck would be the coach to drag UCLA into relevance. I think Fleck would raise the floor of the program, but that might not be enough here.

Brent Brennan

Current job: Head coach, Arizona

Brennan is a weird mix of qualities that likely make him unappealing to the average UCLA fan. He’s a UCLA alum, which I know will leave a bad taste in many fans’ mouths following the Foster fiasco. He’s also fairly new to his current job, arriving in Arizona following the departure of Jedd Fisch to Washington, so everything we said about Smith and Fisch would apply to Brennan, too. And just as a hire, Brennan is not a flashy name that would get the fanbase excited. That does count for something.

There are positives to Brennan. His work at San Jose State almost feels deserving of a statue; while his overall record of 34-48 might seem bad, he’s also the only coach in school history to take the team to three bowl games and won the Mountain West during the 2020 COVID season, their first conference title since they played in the Big West conference. Brennan is also intimately familiar with the California recruiting scene, which is a point in his favor.

Kalani Sitake

Current job: Head coach, BYU

Of all the early names thrown out as possibilities for this job, Sitake’s is the name that feels the least plausible. It is almost a Matt Campbell situation, with Sitake sticking at his alma mater in BYU for the past 10 seasons despite garnering interest from other programs. He is paid very well, and BYU has shown a commitment to bringing in talent well above what UCLA currently has shown, so this name feels like a reach.

There’s no doubting that Sitake would instill a toughness to UCLA that has been lacking in the past decade, and his teams always play tenacious defense. But like Brennan, he’s not a sexy name and likely has a better job at the moment. This one feels like a leverage play for an extension.

The Super Spicy Options

D’Anton Lynn

Current job: Defensive coordinator, Southern Cal

I did consider not listing Lynn at all here, but I think we have to be honest and say that UCLA will likely sniff around Lynn as part of doing their due diligence.

It is fair to say that Lynn is a good defensive coordinator, having turned Southern Cal into a respectable defense last year (which is also why it was so funny that they ended up being middling, but I digress). He’s not a great recruiter, and I’m still unconvinced that he isn’t trying to leverage a return to the NFL in the near future. Still, he now has more college experience at a program that is taking football seriously, and I would imagine that any return to UCLA would require meeting a certain level of expectations from the school, which would be interesting in itself.

Kalen DeBoer

Current job: Head coach, Alabama

All right, let’s get nuts.

Would UCLA be willing to pay the buyout to get Kalen Deboer out of Alabama (which, according to numerous reporters, is around $65 million currently)? Absolutely not. Would Alabama be willing to pay that for a coach who is not working for them? That’s another story.

It is an understatement to say that Deboer’s tenure in Tuscaloosa has gotten off to a rocky start. It hasn’t been bad, per se - Alabama is still a good team that had impressive wins last year over Georgia and LSU - but the floor seems to be lower than it was during the Saban era. If anything, that’s the biggest problem for Deboer, as it’s hard to be the guy after The Guy, and he’s suffering from the comparison to one of the greatest coaches in college football history. If there’s any fanbase that can relate to a coach not living up to those expectations, it’s UCLA fans.

This would be an opportunity to right a wrong in UCLA football's past, where the Bruins had a clear opportunity to fire Chip Kelly and hire DeBoer back in 2021 (a year where, you might recall, DeBoer’s Fresno State team walked into the Rose Bowl and beat a Chip Kelly team coming off the high of beating LSU). Instead, DeBoer went to Washington, where he led the team to the CFP National Championship Game, and UCLA continued to struggle. DeBoer is a proven winner on the West Coast, and while his Alabama tenure has not been smooth, there is an open question about whether he’s the right fit for that job.

Like I said, this one feels really unlikely. Even given how Alabama’s season has gone so far, I don’t think the folks in charge will have the stomach to get rid of DeBoer after this year. UCLA and DeBoer could conceivably negotiate a reduced buyout to get the Crimson Tide out of a situation they clearly are unhappy with, but that too feels unlikely. Still, we might as well put him on this list.

Other names to watch

Dan Mullen, Head coach, UNLV

Jason Ecks, Head coach, New Mexico

Spencer Danielson, Head coach, Boise State

Matt Entz, Head coach, Fresno State

Alex Golesh, Head coach, South Florida

Jon Sumrall, Head coach, Tulane

This is a list of names that I don’t think are very serious, but will get thrown around for the opening at various times, either because they are in proximity (Mullen, Danielson), fast risers in the area (Ecks, Entz), or are considered the hot coaching names this cycle (Golesh, Sumrall). In particular, Golesh and Sumrall seem destined for SEC jobs in the near future, so I doubt they get a serious look here, and many of the more local names are too new to their jobs to make an informed decision about them. Well, except for Mullen, but I think we have enough data to know he’ll raise the floor but not the ceiling.

Of the list, Entz is the most intriguing. Most people here would know him as the former Southern Cal linebackers coach from last season, who was brought in to support D’Anton Lynn in his transition to Southern Cal, but before that, he was the head coach at North Dakota State for five years, winning the FCS national championship twice in that time span. He took the demotion to a linebackers coach last year in part because NDSU’s playoff run took him out of the running for a host of open jobs, so he needed to reset his coaching clock. I think it’s too early in his Fresno State run to make the move, but he’s a name I would be watching in the future.

The Bad Pile

Urban Meyer, TV Analyst, former head coach

Jon Gruden, podcaster, former head coach

David Shaw, Passing game coordinator, Detroit Lions

Look, they all get lumped together because they are all varying degrees of bad.

Urban Meyer is not the coach he was when he left Ohio State, and he has not coached in college since 2018. Throw in all the baggage hiring Meyer would bring (everything from his Jacksonville tenure to the unruly nature of his program at both Florida and Ohio State), and I think UCLA’s admin will steer clear.

The Grumors are always popular whenever a coaching search starts up (he’s already leading the betting odds!), but Gruden is a terrible option for a multitude of reasons. He hasn’t coached in college since 1991; he’s a career .500 coach who continues to ride one Super Bowl championship (where he faced the team he just left to win it all), and his last NFL head coaching tenure ended in disaster when his emails were released to the public. Of note: Gruden never apologized for the contents of the emails themselves, just that they were released. He’s categorically unfit to lead college athletes, and I’m not sure why we keep doing this to ourselves.

David Shaw will always get play at UCLA after living rent-free in so many Bruin fans’ heads for the better part of a decade, but he’s also the architect of the current Stanford failures, and he’s wholly unsuited to lead a modern program. At least in this case, Shaw has openly stated he does not want to return to college football, so we can just keep hoping that holds up.

Go Bruins!

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