LOS ANGELES — As commitment after commitment rolled in last weekend, it felt as though UCLA was waking up from a decade-long recruiting hibernation.
Over the span of a few days, new coach Bob Chesney orchestrated the most impressive recruiting run the program has enjoyed since Jim Mora Jr. was the head coach in the mid-2010s. The Bruins recently landed commitments from five blue-chip prospects, including three players ranked in the top 100 nationally, according to the 247Sports Composite. It’s only May, but Chesney’s first recruiting class at UCLA currently sits in the top five in the country.
The surge caught a lot of people by surprise, but there was a time in the not-too-distant past when UCLA routinely finished in the top 15 of the national recruiting rankings.
“That’s how it should be around there. That’s a legit place,” said a former UCLA assistant coach.
UCLA finished with eight top-20 classes from 2010 through 2018, yet hasn’t had a class ranked higher than No. 33 in the 2020s.
UCLA recruiting, last 5 cycles
ClassBlue-chippersTop-100 prospects
2027
9
3
2026
1
0
2025
2
0
2024
2
0
2023
3
1
The Bruins have been largely out of sight, out of mind — at least in the recruiting world — but it’s a program with a lot to offer. The school is strong academically, it plays in arguably the sport’s best conference and is surrounded by one of the best local talent bases in the country.
Women’s basketball just won the national championship. The softball program is always among the best in the nation, and the baseball team is on the verge of being the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.
“The one thing that’s not up to par at this moment is this football team,” Chesney told reporters on Saturday, “and it’s my job to make sure we get that back.”
College football is a player-driven sport. After years of falling behind the pack in the talent acquisition department, UCLA, led by Chesney, is finally starting to show signs that it’s headed in the right direction.
When speaking to people about UCLA football, there’s one consistent theme that comes up: Chesney’s energy.
“It does have a lot of Pete Carroll vibes,” said Scott Altenberg, the head coach at Serra High School in Gardena, Calif., and a UCLA alum. “(Pete) was so active, and he was always around. He was at my office all the time when we had Robert Woods and all those guys, and a couple earlier than that and had tons of energy.
“(Chesney) came to Serra one day and he sat with me for almost an hour and talked about stuff, and I remember thinking he knows what he wants and he’s got great energy. It’s kind of like a thing where it’s different (for UCLA). It’s been really good.”
Under Chip Kelly — never known as a grinder on the recruiting trail — UCLA alienated a lot of high schools in Southern California. The Bruins were late to offer a lot of notable local recruits and often slow-played the process to the point where it was too late to gain any traction with them. And Kelly preferred experienced transfers over high school players, which led to small recruiting classes.
Bob Chesney has taken teams to the playoffs in Division III, Division II, the FCS and the FBS. (Kirby Lee / Imagn Images)
DeShaun Foster, who took over in 2024, tried to rebuild those bridges, but his tenure was cut short after a disastrous start to the 2025 season.
Chesney has been extremely active early on, and it’s given UCLA a much-needed jolt of excitement. The Bruins currently hold commitments from nine blue-chip prospects in their 2027 class. They haven’t signed that many blue-chippers since 2018, when the program was still riding the hype of the Kelly hire.
“Landing a flurry of quality commitments is usually indicative of a plan put in motion and then consistency of its application,” a personnel staffer at another Big Ten program said. “It’s obvious that he and his staff are working and making a pointed effort to elevate the energy around their program. They’re seeing some early positive signs stemming from that effort.”
Chesney also comes armed with a proof of concept. He’s been successful everywhere he’s coached, winning a conference title and taking programs to the playoffs at each level — Division III, Division II, the FCS and the FBS. Most recently, he guided James Madison to a 12-2 season, a Sun Belt championship and a College Football Playoff appearance.
“Confident and know what they want,” Altenberg said of how Chesney and his staff operate. “Not doing the whole ‘Google me’ thing or anything like that, but ‘This is what we want to do and take it how you want, but this is what we’re going to do.’ In high school coaching, I always talk about how vision is important, but what’s even more important is when everybody has the same vision, they all understand what the vision is at the top.”
Both of Chesney’s coordinators, Dean Kennedy (offense) and Colin Hitschler (defense), have worked in the SEC, so there’s an understanding of recruiting standards and expectations. Receivers coach Colin Lockett coached at Southern California high school powerhouse St. John Bosco and also spent a couple of seasons at Oregon. Defensive line coach Vic So’oto has spent the past six years working in and recruiting the state of California while at USC and Cal.
Of course, a story about a program improving its positioning on the recruiting food chain can’t be written without discussing resources. UCLA has taken steps forward in that regard — because it had to. It’s believed that the program has more than doubled its third-party/NIL spending.
For as good a coach as Chesney is, it’s very difficult to envision him being successful at UCLA without the proper investment in the program. Former UCLA chancellor Gene Block was always viewed as indifferent to athletics, at best.
Current chancellor Julio Frenk, who previously served as the president at the University of Miami, has been more supportive of the program. Last September, athletic director Martin Jamond fired Foster in mid-September, just three games into his second season — a move that demonstrated more urgency than the school had shown in the past.
The long search provided UCLA’s administration time to build donor support for Foster’s successor, which was a prerequisite if it was going to land a quality coach. The prevailing opinion in the industry was that UCLA wasn’t a desirable job and the school wasn’t committed to football.
That characterization wasn’t unfair based on how the university has acted in the past.
UCLA still has work to do in terms of garnering support from the donor base — and Chesney has to win games — but there finally appears to be a desire to be competitive in the modern landscape. Chesney signed a five-year, $33.75 million contract and is making more in his first season than Kelly did in his final year with the program. The assistant coaches are getting paid more, and more is being spent on the roster.
“More resources make all the difference,” the former UCLA assistant coach said.
Naturally, when a school goes on a surprising recruiting spree at this time of year, there is talk that the program is spending above market value for its commitments. “(It’s) sustainable as long as they wanna overpay,” an assistant coach in a Power 4 conference said to The Athletic — a sentiment shared by two other Power 4 staffers.
It’s only May, and there’s a whole season to play before any of these recruits can make it official in December.
“There are a lot of strong recruiting operations in this conference that haven’t even stretched their legs yet,” the Big Ten personnel staffer said.
And there are some in the personnel space who have questioned the quality of some of the Bruins’ recent commitments.
Time will tell whether the skepticism is warranted, but it’s easy to understand why a fan base that has had very little reason to follow recruiting in recent years is so excited.
Chesney has undoubtedly done a great job of creating momentum, but now comes the hard part — maintaining it and winning games on the field.
“It’s crazy. I have a group we have season tickets with, and they’re calling me,” Altenberg said. “Usually it’s like, ‘Do we have any fun games this year?’ Now it’s ‘When do we start?’ There’s a buzz. It’s crazy. But I’m a coach — that buzz is always there until Game 1.”
