Breaking Down UCLA Football’s Potential Offensive Coordinator Candidates

Unlike the open position of defensive coordinator, the Bruins’ next offensive coordinator is unlikely to make or break the next era of football in Westwood.

UCLA coach and offensive coordinator Justin Frye, who held the final title for the past three seasons, has moved to the state of Ohio, leaving both positions open to the team’s offensive staff. Coach Chip Kelly is basically the offensive coordinator for the Bruins and has been since his arrival, installing the offense he wanted and acting as the primary player in the process.

Still, the offensive coordinator position serves as an opportunity to give a position coach a dual role and reward, as well as the prestige that comes with being a Power Five coordinator learning under Kelly’s tutelage. With that in mind, here are the four most interesting options that UCLA could look at as the next offensive coordinator.

Tim Ancient, UCLA

As of Thursday, all signs point to Drevno becoming the next striker for the Bruins.

247Sports’ Bruin Report Online was the first to report that UCLA was preparing to hire Drevno to the position earlier this week, and the reports were only further amplified as Drevno was out on recruiting visits. Sure, teams may send analysts like Drevno on recruiting trips if they have gaps in their full-time coaching staff, as is the case with the Bruins, but the pieces seem to line up nicely.

Drevno was set to take over from Frye in coaching the offensive line, so it would only make sense if he were a candidate to also take over the title of offensive coordinator.

Before spending the 2021 season as an offensive analyst for UCLA, Drevno was the offensive line coach and game coordinator at USC. Drevno also had previous stops with UNLV, San Jose State, Stanford and the San Francisco 49ers, and he was the offensive line coach and offensive coordinator in San Diego from 2003 to 2006 and in Michigan from 2015 to 2017.

Drevno is already familiar with the system the Bruins use, and he has a steady relationship with Kelly. Add to that his experience in the Pac-12, Big Ten and NFL, and Drevno looks like an easy candidate to take over, even if his stints at USC and Michigan didn’t end in a particularly beautiful way.

DeShaun Foster, UCLA

Tight-ends coach Derek Sage might have lined up for the internal promotion if he hadn’t left to become Nevada’s offensive coordinator. His replacement, Duke’s Jeff Faris, might also have been appropriate had the team’s official press release of his hiring not been omitted Wednesday morning regarding the title of an offensive coordinator.

So with Frye and Sage gone and quarterback coach Ryan Gunderson and receiver coach Jerry Neuheisel just finishing their first year as full-time coaches on the program, the longest-serving member of the Bruins’ offensive coaching staff is Coach DeShaun’s rider. foster.

Foster was a record set back at UCLA in the late 1990s and early 2000s for a successful NFL career with the Carolina Panthers. After spending five years as an undergraduate and graduate assistant under Jim Mora, Foster left the running backs coach at Texas Tech under Kliff Kingsbury in 2016, only to return a year later and become the running backs coach at Westwood. to become.

As part of Mora, Kingsbury and Kelly’s coaching boom, Foster has learned from multiple successful head coaches and coordinators over the past decade. In terms of the job groups he led himself, Foster has helped to publicize Joshua Kelley, Demetric Felton, Brittain Brown and Zach Charbonnet, while being a solid recruiter from high school and the transfer portal.

Foster may not be a candidate for the Coordinator in most places, but if UCLA wants to reward his loyalty and success in leading the running backs, the best course of action would be to give him the Offensive Coordinator position.

Ethan Young, UCLA

With Faris and supposedly Drevno joining the staff, all offensive vacancies will be filled in the near future. Unless the less experienced Gunderson or Neuheisel get the nod, that means the coordinator role can go to someone whose sole responsibility is to be a coordinator.

That would be an interesting move given that Kelly will be the playcaller anyway, but he could also use it to promote an analyst or just get another voice he likes into the room. One of the reported heists that Kelly ended up getting in his renewal negotiations was an increased salary pool for his staff. Depending on how much has been added to that pool, there may be enough money to add another full-time staff member on top of the position of coaches already in place.

While he is an unlikely option and very much a dark horse, the most likely candidate if Kelly goes down that road would likely be director of player staff Ethan Young.

Young has been a part of Kelly’s staff since its inception, first as director of strategic intelligence before moving into his current role, which includes many recruiting duties. Young has a lot of experience in analysis and scouting for someone his age, and he is also the public face of the Bruins on the recruiting path.

Earlier in January, there were reports that Young may be in the running to take over Sage as tight ends coach. After being passed over for that job, UCLA can try to fix the fence by giving him a nice new title and a big new contract. Maybe he was passed over there because they had other plans for him, or maybe it was because they decided he wasn’t suited for a more hands-on, coaching role on the pitch – it’s impossible to know for sure.

Young’s X’s and Os are a mystery, and it would be rather risky to turn someone in their late 20s into a Power Five coordinator for their first coaching job on the field. Still, Kelly is like many other coaches in that he likes to surround himself with familiar, friendly faces, and Young could fill that void if Kelly decides to go down this unorthodox path.

Chip Kelly, UCLA

This option may also be referred to as “None” as it is unlikely that Kelly would receive the title of Offensive Coordinator in addition to his job as head coach.

This is the route Kelly took in 2018, his first year at Westwood, as the Bruins did not have an official offensive coordinator that season. Strategically, this would be a perfectly normal move to make, and it didn’t really hurt UCLA four years ago on purpose.

However, what would make this an interesting move in 2022 is that Kelly reportedly spent the past month getting a bigger salary pool for his assistants. One of the ways he could spend that money on coaches he respects and likes to be around is to give one of them the title of Offensive Coordinator and thereby increase their salary.

But maybe Kelly wants to give everyone a small raise instead of paying a big raise for one coach. In that case, he can certainly forget the offensive coordinator search and handle everything himself in name and in practice.

Again, this decision has more to do with salaries and titles than schedule and playcalling as that will remain the same no matter what Kelly decides to do here. It’s not as critical of a process as looking for the defensive coordinator, but it can still have lasting effects on the staff moving forward.

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