{"id":97421,"date":"2026-07-20T11:41:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T18:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=97421"},"modified":"2026-07-20T11:46:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T18:46:31","slug":"the-bruin-beat-7-20-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=97421","title":{"rendered":"The Bruin Beat: 7\/20\/2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Tim Peterson <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of people look at the Chip Kelly era at UCLA as a bust. They say he didn’t like to recruit, was unwilling to put in the work and didn’t like the NIL process. The Bruins were 34-34 under Kelly during his six-year stint. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Although his first three seasons were a little rough, the Bruins went 25-13 overall under Kelly in his last three years and they won eight games in each of his last three seasons. The Bruins won a Bowl game beating Boise St. in the LA Bowl in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recruiting was an issue. The Bruins never broke the top 25 during Kelly’s tenure. The 2024 class ranked 70th nationally and 17th in the Big Ten. But again, Kelly doesn’t write the checks. You have to wonder if the low ranking was due to Kelly’s inability to recruit or UCLA’s refusal to keep up with the big boys and pay the big money for the big-time athletes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember Kelly wasn’t fired. He quit. Kelly just wanted to coach and not deal with all of the administrative burdens such as NIL, recruiting etc. so he packed his bags for Ohio State. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came the DeShaun Foster era – the era that had the UCLA faithful pining for the Chip Kelly era. The Bruins went 8-16 over the last two years including 5-10 under Foster. UCLA started 0-3 in 2025 before he was fired. Was it too late to being Kelly back? Although Foster probably wasn’t there long enough to evaluate his recruiting, now coaching seemed to be an issue as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward to the Bob Chesney era. People may not have known who Chesney was before he was hired as head coach but they do now. He just led James Madison to a playoff berth and now recruiting, which has been historically a problem, is booming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first full recruiting cycle under Chesney, UCLA is trending towards signing its best class since 2018. The Bruins’ 2027 class is currently ranked 19th nationally and sixth in the Big 10. Only Oregon, Ohio St, Nebraska, USC and Michigan are ahead of them. It’s been mentioned how Chesney has effectively used the transfer portal, including bringing in several James Madison players, but now he has been blazing the recruiting trail as well. 5-star athlete Juju Johnson leads the UCLA recruiting class of 2027, which also includes seven 4-star commits and 15 3-stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 16 years as a college coach, Chesney has always had a winning record. And now the Bruins have a guy that can recruit and yes…coach. The Bruins had to take a step back before taking two steps forward. The jury is still out but as of right now Chesney checks all the boxes. The Bruins are now hoping he can check in with a big season and a bright future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

tim.midvalleysports@gmail.com Twitter (X) @tspeterson40 Facebook-Tim Peterson <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tim Peterson A lot of people look at the Chip Kelly era at UCLA as a bust. They say he didn’t like to recruit, was unwilling to put in the work and didn’t like the NIL process. The Bruins were 34-34 under Kelly during his six-year stint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[871],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97421"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97428,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97421\/revisions\/97428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}