Are you ready for some football? I sure as heck am!
After a long offseason, the Bruins are finally ready to take the field on Saturday at UC Berkeley at 7:30 pm PT. Saturday’s game will be UCLA’s first matchup against the Golden Bears since the Bruins played UC Berkeley in the final Pac-12 football game for both schools.
Ch-Ch-Change
To say that UCLA is a completely new team this year from the one which finished 3-9 last year might be an understatement. The Bruins have 45 transfers joining the team this year to go along with 17 incoming freshman. That means UCLA’s 62 new players outnumber the 57 players who are back from last season. The Bruins return a total of just six starters from last year with three on each side of the ball.
This was to be expected, and it is the kind of roster reconstruction which typically occurs across college football these days when a program goes through a coaching change. For everyone out there who doubted a coaching change could accomplish transformative change in the program, it also serves as proof of exactly the type of change many have felt was needed at the end of Chip Kelly’s reign in Westwood.
But the head coach and the roster aren’t the only things which have changed for the Bruins.
UCLA has almost an entirely new coaching staff as well. Only two of twelve assistant coaches have returned from last season. Those coaches are running backs coach A.J. Steward and nickels coach Gabe Lynn. While seven of Bob Chesney’s assistant coaches followed him to Westwood from James Madison, three new Bruin assistants join the staff after coaching at neither UCLA nor JMU last season. The seven coaches who join the Bruins after coaching the Dukes last season are defensive coordinator Colin Hitschler, offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy, special teams coordinator/tight ends coach Drew Canan, offensive line coach/run game coordinator Chris Smith, safeties coach Anthony DiMichele, defensive backs coach Eddie Whitley Jr. and defensive ends coach Sam Daniels. UCLA’s other three new assistant coaches are linebackers coach Vic So’oto, who joins UCLA from UC Berkeley, defensive line coach Legi Suiaunoa, who coached at Michigan State last season, and wide receivers coach Colin Lockett, who arrives in Westwood from New Mexico.
Interestingly, Bob Chesney isn’t the only head coach coaching his first game as this will be the first game for new UC Berkeley head coach Tosh Lupoi as well. Unlike Chesney who begins his seventeenth season as a head coach, this will be Lupoi’s first game as a head coach at any level. When you factor in that Chesney’s teams have won their opener by at least two touchdowns in each of the past six seasons, it could be a long night for the Bears.
Lupoi heads back to his alma mater where he played from 2000 to 2005 and he served as the team’s defensive line coach from 2008 to 2011. He left Berkeley to join Steve Sarkisian at Washington in 2012 in the same role. When Sarkisian left for Southern Cal two seasons later, Lupoi was not hired by the Trojans because he was under an NCAA investigation for recruiting violations. While he was eventually cleared, new Huskies head coach Chris Petersen did not keep him. As a result, Lupoi went to Alabama as a defensive analyst. Over time, he was promoted to Nick Saban’s on-field staff and he was named Bama’s defensive coordinator in 2018. He left the college ranks for the NFL, coaching for the Browns, Falcons and Jaguars before joining Dan Lanning’s staff at Oregon in 2022 as defensive coordinator until being hired by Berkeley last December.
In addition to a first-time head coach, the Bears have a first-time offensive coordinator in Jordan Somerville. Frankly, Somerville’s resume looks pretty weak. He was a grad assistant at Arizona State from 2017 to 2019. He left the Sun Devils to become the running backs coach at New Mexico in 2020. After two seasons with the Lobos, he spent a season as an offensive assistant at Oregon. He joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2023 as their assistant quarterbacks coach where he spent three seasons with the Bucs. That’s it.
The other side of the ball isn’t much better. Defensive coordinator Michael Hutchings is another key assistant with limited experience. After 15 games in four seasons at Southern Cal, he spent two seasons as a grad assistant for the Trojans before being promoted to defensive quality control analyst in 2020. He spent 2021 as a defensive analyst for Oregon and he spent 2022 as the outsider linebackers coach for the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. From WKU, he joined the Minnesota Vikings where he started as the team’s assistant defensive backs coach in 2023 and was promoted to safeties coach for two seasons starting in 2024. It’s probably a good thing Lupoi will likely be the guy calling the defense.
The saving grace for Lupoi’s coaching staff might be Nick Rolovich. Of course, Bruin fans will remember Rolovich mostly for his tenure as the head coach at Hawai’i. In 2017, Rolovich’s Warriors came to the Rose Bowl and were dismantled by Jim Mora’s Bruins, 56-23. While Rolovich replaced Mike Leach as the head coach at Washington State, his tenure with the Cougars was short. The Cougs played just four games during the COVID-shortened 2020 season and he was fired by WSU AD Pat Chung for failing to comply with the State of Washington's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for state employees, despite claiming a religious exemption. Rolovich filed a wrongful termination suit against Wazzu and, while he lost in federal district court, an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was filed and remains pending.
From a football standpoint, Rolovich was out of coaching until Justin Wilcox brought him on as a senior offensive assistant last season. When Wilcox was fired on November 23, Rolovich took over as the Bears’ interim head coach. Rolovich led UC Berkeley to a win over SMU, but the team lost to Hawai’i in the Hawai’i Bowl.
UC Berkeley Special Teams
When a coaching change takes places, very few starting jobs can be considered “safe.” At the same time, redshirt senior Chase Meyer will likely be the Bears’ starting kicker. Last season, he made 10 of 13 field goal attempts and all 39 extra point tries. At the same time, his season long was just 45 yards in the Bears’ game against Louisville.
The reason his starting job is likely safe is because Lupoi did not go out and recruit an established kicker. Instead, he brought in Auburn transfer Towns McGough who joins the Bears as a redshirt sophomore. McGough redshirted last season after solid freshman season for the Tigers which saw him go 5-for-12 on field goal attempts with a long of 32 yards. He also made all 27 extra point attempts. McGough did kickoff 62 times in 2024 with an average of 62.9 yards. So, he could very well find himself as the Bears’ kickoff specialist.
UC Berkeley’s other kicker is redshirt freshman Erik Peters who did not see action last year.
The Bears’ probable starter at punter is senior transfer Angus Davies. The age of UC Berkeley’s Aussie punter isn’t exactly known, but he may very well be 29. Regardless of his actual age, he averaged 43.49 yards per punt last season at Tulsa and his longest was an 80-yarder. 21 of his 47 punts landed inside the 20 and eight were longer than 50 yards.
UC Berkeley lost their top kick and punt returner from last season. Jacob deJesus graduated after last season. No one else returned more than one punt or one kickoff. So, this is one of those specialist positions which were up for grabs. Our friends at WriteForCalifornia indicate senior receiver Chase Hendricks is likely to be the Bears’ punt returner while junior running back Adam Mohammed and sophomore runningg back Carter Vargas will likely return kickoffs.
Go Bruins!!!
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"Lupoi was not hired by the Trojans because he was under an NCAA investigation for recruiting violations." Recruiting violations?? I thought that would be a resume enhancer at U$C. LOL
Woo hoo! We’re back baby! Really looking forward to this season. Hard to know where we’ll finish up given the level of change, but really impressed with the moves and statements Chesney is making. Trying to temper my early expectations though. Cal will be interesting - it looks like a coin toss as to who might win, but I’ll be glued to the screen rooting for UCLA.