‘I’m confident in DeShaun’: UCLA’s Martin Jarmond backs coach amid 1-5 start
Eight months after he called DeShaun Foster “the right man for this job,” UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond continued to stand by his man amid a rocky start for the Bruins’ new football coach.
The Bruins are 1-5 for the first time since Chip Kelly’s second season in 2019. Their offense is among the worst in the nation. They haven’t won a home game in three tries and have lost five games in a row.
As one might expect when it comes to the most important hire of his nearly 4½ years on the job, Jarmond is remaining an optimist.
“I’m confident in DeShaun,” Jarmond told The Times on Monday afternoon during a wide-ranging telephone interview. “This is DeShaun’s team, these are his players and he’s working hard every day to make this program successful. Growth isn’t linear, and it’s not always reflected in the record, but the guys are playing hard and we’re getting better and they’re going to keep working hard, and so we’ve got to keep swinging and keep pushing forward.”
Bruins for Life emerges as UCLA football’s NIL arm in reboot of fundraising efforts
UCLA’s football team is making a massive midseason change as part of a reboot of the athletic department’s name, image and likeness endeavors.
Bruins for Life, a new NIL arm established to focus solely on football, will join Champion of Westwood and Men of Westwood as one of the school’s NIL branches.
“This structure gives us more clarity and makes it easier for people that want to support our student-athletes to do it,” UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond told The Times. “You really need a more singular, specialized focus when it comes to raising money for football and men’s and women’s basketball.”
‘I didn’t want to be bought’: Why Jay Toia returned to lead UCLA’s scrappy defense
A season of monotony has played out with a numbing sameness on the interior of UCLA’s defensive line.
On almost every play, two or three offensive linemen converge on Jay Toia, massive bodies colliding in an attempt to neutralize the Bruins defensive tackle.
Taken in isolation, it might seem like a win for coaches committing nearly 1,000 pounds to counteract an otherwise unstoppable force. Halfway through the season, Toia has tallied just 12 tackles, half a tackle for loss and two quarterback hurries.
Those might seem like meager numbers for a player widely expected to be selected in the NFL draft this spring until you consider the ripple effect.
All that open space created by Toia’s block hogging has benefited teammates. Lots of them. Carson Schwesinger leads the Big Ten with 47 solo tackles. Kain Medrano has notched five tackles for loss, spending enough time in the backfield to collect loyalty points. Oluwafemi Oladejo has become a fearsome edge rusher in part because he has fewer bodies to beat on his way to the quarterback.
Can UCLA get its Big Ten breakthrough? Five things to watch against Rutgers
They played “The Sopranos” theme song at UCLA practice this week, a nod to the Bruins’ first game in New Jersey in the school’s 105 years of football.
If UCLA doesn’t beat reeling Rutgers in the land of the wiseguys, the Bruins can probably forget about it when it comes to being given a pass for their first Big Ten season.
Next up on the schedule are Nebraska (5-1), Iowa (4-2) and Washington (4-3), each probably a double-digit favorite against UCLA.
UCLA vs. Rutgers: How to watch the game, plus betting odds
UCLA (1-5) will look to snap its five-game losing streak against Minnesota (4-2) at SHI Stadium in Piscataway, N.J., at 9 a.m. PDT. The game will air on the FS1 and will be available on 570 AM in the Los Angeles area.
Here are the betting odds for Saturday’s game between the Bruins and Scarlet Knights:
