LOS ANGELES – UCLA’s football season stunk. It was awful. It started with four consecutive losses and ended with five straight, including a 29-10 defeat Saturday night to crosstown rival USC at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
Head coach DeShaun Foster got fired after Game 3 and then the school decided it wants to punt on the best thing it has going for its football program – that it plays in the most iconic football stadium in America.
A lot about this 2025 season was bad.
But not Tim Skipper.
That guy – the guy on whom the Bruins pinned the interim tag before Game 4 – was the breath of fresh air helping disguise the stench of an otherwise terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad season.
Like who knows how many members of this 3-9 Bruins team, Skipper likely won’t be back next season. Word on the internet is that UCLA is taking a hard look at James Madison coach Bob Chesney, whose team just finished 11-1.
But before the revolving door moves UCLA’s aggravated fans on from this season of futility, an appreciation.
For Skipper, the 47-year-old New Orleans native and one-time undersized Fresno State linebacker, who was the desperately needed source of light in a dark timeline. He’ll light up the next room he walks into, too, wherever it is.
He was the man always smiling infectiously on the sideline this season, the dude with the shaved head and all the charisma keeping his flailing team flailing, swinging, straining despite any deficit.
Straining so hard, in fact, that UCLA reeled off three improbable-seeming wins midway through, getting L.A. talking by beating then-No. 7 Penn State, Michigan State and Maryland and saving the Bruins from what looked like it would be a winless season.
Skipper is one of those rare people who hands out hope even when it’s hopeless, who’ll remind those around him that’s what sports are supposed to be about, actually.
“I think the whole locker room, coaches included, we just learned that no matter what situation you’re in, if you fight, you can get yourself out of it,” Skipper said after Saturday’s loss. “… that’s where I am with it. We’ll keep moving forward. Setbacks are temporary. You just keep moving forward.”
That might read like regular-old coach-speak, but it doesn’t sound like it when Skipper says it.
He was hired to Foster’s assistant, handling practice schedules and other tasks for the program around the Wasserman Football Center. Three games later, he was leading the UCLA football program, which also said goodbye to defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe and offensive coordinator Tino Sunseri – but to none of its players.
Not one of the guys in pads hit the transfer portal when it opened for 30 days, so enamored were they by the aptly named Skipper. He was the man at the helm, steering a listing ship taking on water by the week – not out of troubled waters, exactly, but buoying the young men aboard through the storm.
“That we didn’t win this one, it hurts for the whole locker room,” Keanu Williams said. “And not only for just us, but for [Skipper] too.”
Star quarterback Nico Iamaleava – the other pinprick of light in UCLA’s dreary season – concurred.
“Coach Skip is somebody you want to play for, somebody you want to go out there and go to war for,” Iamaleava said. “Along with Coach Jerry [Neuheisel] and Coach [Kevin] Coyle, those guys came in every day to work and put us in the best position to be successful, and that’s not easy, man.
“The year we had, it’s easy to just give up on a year and not get anywhere. So I was very fortunate to have him on our corner.”
Skipper wasn’t a perfect play-caller, no. He’s not a coaching genius. There were drives like the one that buried the Bruins in the second half Saturday, when they drained more than seven minutes and went 40 yards on 10 penalty-filled plays and wound up turning over the ball on downs.
But the bigger picture is that the picture at UCLA could have been – would have been – much uglier if Skipper hadn’t been around to pick up the ball and run with it. All the way through the finish line, when UCLA put a short-lived scare into the No. 17 Trojans by taking a 10-7 lead into halftime of the rivalry showdown.
“It was awesome,” Skipper said. “I loved coaching today. I wish we had a different outcome, but it was still a good game, and the atmosphere was awesome and the buildup was awesome. I loved everything about it.”
In a season that offered so little to love, Skipper gave the Bruins something.