From what we've heard, he interviewed there and killed it, but also didn't love some of Penn State's answers. But Penn State seemingly never actually offered him the job because the AD thought the fans wouldn't accept a G6 coach.
He might have been under consideration for a bit, but once we locked up Sitake (lmao) we already had our guy. When that fell apart everyone we'd looked at had new jobs or contracts already
That's the vibes I got and matches the timeline. Chesney held out a real long time before publicly announcing UCLA. I figured he was waiting on Penn State and they finally turned him down when they got the verbal from Sitake.
It actually wasn't. They made a committee of a former player (Eric Kendricks), our top donor (Casey Wasserman, do not crtl+f the Epstein files for him), two pro GMs (Bob Myers formerly of the Warriors and Adam Peters of the Commanders), and if you believe the press, Jarmond (word is he was basically just rubber-stamping). They did a search and quickly decided Chesney was their top option and were willing to wait for him to make his decision. They promised to get NIl to top 5 in the B1G and make a true commitment to football. The back up sounds like it was Sean Lewis (San Diego State's HC). Thank fucking God.
I've been following UCLA football since the early 80s. The last ambitious hire that I recall was Dick Vermeil in 1974, so if you may excuse my cynicism.
A "lazy hire" whose 5-0 and has the bruins tied for the conference lead after changing the whole culture of the program. Seems like UCLA finally has their man.
At a minimum discussed as a landing spot for him that was speculated he would jump on. It was definitely talked about a good bit because Chesney was who I wanted
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u/Alone_Advantage_961 Maryland • Notre Dame 6d ago edited 6d ago
Since their 0-4 start last season, UCLA is 8-5.
Penn State is 7-8.
UCLA stole their mojo and Penn State screwed up worse not hiring Chesney