UCLA has managed to absolutely blow it out of Westwood, turning the narrative around with new coach Bob Chesney, a guy who’s already got the players, administration, and boosters believing he can bring national-level success to the West Coast. The relentlessly positive and perfectly coiffed 49-year-old has a track record.
The Chesney Effect: From Small Schools to CFP to West Coast Hype
The turnaround at UCLA is largely thanks to Bob Chesney, who proved his winning chops at a bunch of smaller schools in the Northeast before taking James Madison all the way to the College Football Playoff last season. And now, without even coaching a single game on the West Coast, he’s convinced everyone in Westwood that he can pull off the same magic. Senior linebacker Jalen Woods put it perfectly, saying, “When you do your research on him, you see that he’s a winner. It’s not his first rodeo.” What a brutal contrast for Woods, who’s played for three head coaches, the same number of games UCLA won last season.
Lincoln Riley’s Bubble Wrap World And A Program Losing The Narrative
Meanwhile, across town, it’s a completely different vibe for Lincoln Riley and USC. That “patina of endless possibility” they had when he was lured from Oklahoma in a middle-of-the-night shocker in 2021? That’s completely eroded. Back then, a USC stakeholder called it a “paradigm shifter,” expecting a “national championship-level coach” to usher in a “long era of dominance.” Now? “Fragility” is the defining characteristic of the Riley regime, where every interaction feels “bubble wrapped.”
Just 11 days before the Trojans’ Week Zero opener against San Jose State, requests to talk to Riley and his interesting new defensive coordinator, Gary Patterson, former TCU coach and College Football Hall of Famer, were flat-out denied. Instead, USC’s communications staff basically herded reporters from outside the sparkling new Bloom Performance Center onto the practice field. Media was carefully managed, told exactly where to stand to watch stretching, and what photographers and videographers could shoot. After a few minutes, the pack was ushered to the other side of the field and then quickly shown the exit. It felt “purposefully distant and vaguely like a media humiliation ritual,” a wild strategy for a program that has so badly lost the narrative during Riley’s tenure. Riley spoke to media at the 2026 Big Ten Football Media Days on July 28, 2026, in Chicago, but getting real access to him in LA seems to be a whole other story.
The season hasn’t even officially kicked off yet, but the temperature gauge is already red hot and ice cold in Los Angeles. Everyone’s gonna be watching that Week Zero opener for USC to see if the bubble wrap holds, or if the cracks start showing immediately. For UCLA, it’s about whether Chesney can maintain this early season buzz when the real games begin.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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