LOS ANGELES — Bob Chesney won at Salve Regina, a Division III university in Rhode Island. He won at Assumption, a Division II university in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Chesney caught the eye of Holy Cross, an FCS program also in Worcester. He won there too. Goes to say, it’s hardly a surprise the 48-year-old coach from Pennsylvania has won at James Madison in the Sun Belt Conference, leading the Dukes on a College Football Playoff bid with an 11-1 record in 2025.
UCLA is set to hire Chesney as its 20th head football coach, a source familiar with the situation told the Southern California News Group on Monday morning. Chesney, a Dickinson College alumnus, will now try to win in Westwood, becoming the first sitting head coach that UCLA has signed since hiring Pepper Rodgers from Kansas in 1971.
ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported that UCLA is expected to allow Chesney to coach in the College Football Playoff should the Dukes earn a berth.
Chesney holds a 131-51 lifetime coaching record, with just one losing record across 16 seasons as a head coach.
James Madison hired Chesney to replace Curt Cignetti — now of No. 2 Indiana — for the 2024 season, and the Dukes tallied a 9-4 record in his first season as head coach after losing a host of players to the Hoosiers in the transfer portal. The 2025 season, however, has been nothing short of exceptional for Chesney and Co.
The Dukes have surged to 20th in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, only dropping a 14-point defeat to Louisville in week two. Since then, James Madison has won 10 straight games, including a victory over former Pac-12 foe Washington State. On Saturday, James Madison defeated Coastal Carolina 59-10.
Chesney has led the Dukes to the 17th-best offense (35.9 points per game) and 11th stingiest defense (16.5 points allowed per game) in James Madison’s fourth season as an FBS program.
On offense, Chesney has run primarily a dual-threat playbook — called by James Madison offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy — with Dukes quarterback Alonza Barnett III at the helm. Barnett has tallied 17 touchdowns in the air and 12 on the ground so far in 2025.
Defensively, James Madison is unafraid to blitz — or be aggressive with personnel to stop the run game. The Dukes, along with defensive coordinator Colin Hitschler, hold foes to just 2.8 yards per rush and 4.7 yards per play, ranking fifth and seventh in the country, respectively.
UCLA’s search committee – including Casey Wasserman, Bob Myers, Adam Peters and Eric Kendricks in out-of-house members – turned toward the Group of Five coach route rather than established ex-NFL coaches or former power four head coaches, which two of the last three UCLA head coaches (Chip Kelly and Jim Mora) had come from.
Chesney is a stark contrast to the background of former UCLA head coach DeShaun Foster, who was fired after three games into the 2025 season and a 5-10 overall record. Yes, Chesney worked his way up as a positions coach and coordinator early in his career, serving as a defensive backs coach, special teams coach and defensive coordinator across a 2002-2009 stint through Division III universities, Delaware Valley College, King’s College and Johns Hopkins.
But he’s also spent time as a head coach in four vastly different coaching environments — UCLA will be no different, on a higher pedestal in the Big Ten and with no clear ties to the West Coast.
Salve Regina was Chesney’s first coaching job — and in his first year as the Seahawks’ coach, he led the team to their first winning record in nine seasons. Chesney was a three-time Patriot League Coach of the Year winner at Holy Cross, and led Assumption to three Division II Tournament berths in his final three seasons of five years with the Greyhounds.
UCLA is Chesney’s first Power Four coaching opportunity, whether as an assistant or a head coach. The Bruins currently rank 43rd in the 2026 recruiting class, according to 247Sports, ahead of signing day Wednesday.
Chesney’s hiring changes the formula for how the Bruins may recruit and who they may keep. UCLA had general manager Khary Darlington, assistant general manager Steven Price and senior director of recruiting operations Marshawn Friloux leading recruiting efforts between Foster, interim head coach Tim Skipper, and now, Chesney.
The Bruins had close to 60 new faces on their 2025 roster — and in 2026, with Chesney leading UCLA into battle going forward, it’s still to be seen how many players will be new to Westwood in the months ahead.