The 2025 UCLA football season was, by any reasonable accounting, a disaster. The Bruins opened 0-4, a start so poor that head coach DeShaun Foster was fired in September after just three seasons. Interim coach Tim Skipper guided the program to a 3-9 finish, punctuated by a stunning upset of then-No. 7 Penn State 42-37 in October that represented the first time since 1985 a team with an 0-4 record had beaten a top-10 opponent. It was a bright moment inside a very dark year.
In December, UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond hired Bob Chesney as the program's 20th head coach. Chesney arrived from James Madison with a 132-51 career record, eight conference championships, and a reputation for building cultures rather than just rosters. His hire was greeted with cautious optimism from a fan base that has seen enough coaching transitions to know that optimism, by itself, does not win games.
Spring practice opened this week at the Wasserman Football Center, with Chesney running a full-pads session on the first day that he described afterward as exactly the kind of physical, competitive environment he intends to establish as a standard. "We are not interested in what happened last year," he said. "That is not a dismissal of the people who were here. It is just a statement about direction."
The returning piece most closely watched is quarterback Nico Iamaleava, who confirmed in January that he would remain with the program despite interest from multiple transfer portal programs. Iamaleava, a redshirt sophomore from Long Beach, showed enough in his limited appearances last season to convince the new coaching staff that he is the right foundation around which to build the offense. His arm talent is not in question. What Chesney is evaluating this spring is whether his command of a more complex scheme matches what he was asked to do in the previous system.
The new staff also includes a defensive coordinator with a background in Big Ten schemes, an offensive line coach who worked under Chesney at James Madison and followed him to Westwood, and a recruiting coordinator whose West Coast network is seen as critical to UCLA's ability to compete for top California prospects in the transfer portal era.
Spring practices run through late April, with a Blue-Gold scrimmage expected before finals. The regular season opens September 5 at California, a rivalry game that Chesney described as an ideal first test of whether the culture he is building holds under adverse conditions. "Road game, rivalry, opening weekend," he said. "There is no better way to find out who you are."
Bruin fans, worn down by two years of disappointing football, are watching spring practices with a different energy than they have brought to similar sessions in recent memory. The Rose Bowl, which sat half-full for multiple home games last fall, will need a reason to fill up again. Chesney has said, without any apparent self-consciousness, that he plans to give people one.