REACTION to UCLA's new head football coach DeShaun Foster | Yahoo Sports

Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel and Ross Dellenger alongside Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated give their reaction to DeShaun Foster becoming UCLA's new head football coach and whether or not the UCLA alum and former NFL running back will tap into the rich recruiting bed of California to make the program more competitive.
Watch the full conversation here ► • Chip Kelly to Ohio Sta...
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#collegefootball #deshaunfoster #uclafootball

[@kaptainh5538]

I think Foster is a good hire - Be the CEO and hire 2 solid Coordinators . And RECRUIT !!! Chip lost his luster in SF and UCLA . Lost too many games in the 4th Qtr . Losses to Fresno State , San Diego State , come to mind .

[@robjohnston366]

I believe Mr. Forde is an eastcoaster, so he wouldn't know effectively anything about UCLA. If he can stay healthy, Ethan Garbers will be one of the best qbs in BIG, and they'll have a top-tier offense with the continued ability to run the ball, and obviously Coach Foster will desire to maintain that. The team won't quit on Coach Foster as it did with Coach Kelly in 2-3 games as in this past season, because as is evidenced, they LOVE him as seen in the Wasserman Football Center video. The defense has some talent, and Coach Kelly before he left brought in some edge players and a lb from places like Johns Hopkins, Navy, Miami, and Yale. You could laugh, but these four were star players in their leagues as Cam Ward was at Incarnate Word from the Lone Star Conference before he went to WSU and then to Miami, where he showed extremely well and will be a top-tier NFL prospect after next season. I won't be rooting for Miami to do well, but I will hope that CW does. UCLA also has three ND transfers, one who will be a good fit with J. Michael Sturdivant at wr by the name of Rico Flores. UCLA has an extremely tough schedule for 2024, but I expect them to be competitive and maybe to do well with respect to its record, possibly 8-4 before a bowl game. Where Coach Kelly went bad was his not wanting to play the NIL game and trying to interface with possible donors. But one important caveat is that UCLA won't ever play the pay-for-play game, and it'll continue to look for name, image and likeness opportunities to stay true to the acronym/abbreviation. And the winning over the collectives won't be a problem with Coach Foster, and there has already been an uptick in donations. And I believe that he'll continue to find potential stars from the transfer portal; he was at one time the Director of Player Development at UCLA, and this has been reflected in his sending four rbs to the League in the last handful of years. UCB is now Berkeley's official abbreviation, btw, because they have never represented the state -- of the two it's always been UCLA, with its rich history of student athletes like Jackie Robinson, Ralph Bunche, Arthur Ashe, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and many others who have had a major societal impact on the nation and and even the world -- you three ought to read what Dr. Bunche did in winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950. UCLA's current qb Chase Griffin spoke before congress recently about NIL, and he is the scholarly face of NIL now, and there are many other scholars on the school's sports teams, as UCLA has had high standards not only for its regular admits (< 10% acceptance rate), but also for its athletes. As to the points made by Mr. Dellenger, writers like Jon Wilner, who writes for the San Jose Merc, keeps hoping that UCB will receive a _Calimony_ payment of $10m/year, but the language forwarded by the UC Regents is still unclear as to whether it will be a one-time max payment of $10m or whatever/year -- but of course the only legitimate cost should be nothing because of autonomy each campus has in forming these contracts. And UCB brought this on itself by adding on pork to the earthquake-retrofitting of Memorial Stadium with an extremely costly construction of a student recreation center, which they'll be paying I believe they said into the next century. I won't bring politics into the situation, but it's clear that the UC Board has been packed with NorCal types who associate themselves mostly with UCB, including one person in particular, an alum of UCB, who was loudly outspoken and gave the media some choice quotes as to the regents' plan to block UCLA's move to BIG. The UC attorney also stated that UCLA could be blocked. All this seems so foolish now in retrospect because of the Pac's folding, in which UCLA had little to do with, but rather, the prior commissioner Larry Scott being the predominant reason with some assistance by the subsequent one, George Kliavkoff. I don't think that you three are understanding the added revenues from playing in BIG over staying in the badly run Pac. BIG will eventually make things more accommodating in travel for the four westcoast and two east teams in things like basketball and the other non-fb sports. Additionally, the cost of charter-flights was way overstated by [Kliavkoff in his presentation] to the regents. To help revenues, UCLA will also be able to draw better for its fb games with BIG alumni from the westcoast or traveling from points east to the RB. It may be a Chargers or Rams type situation in their games in So-FI for a bit where the opposing teams' fans come close to equalling UCLA's in the RB, but there will be an upward spike in hometown fans as UCLA becomes more competitive under Coach Foster. Despite the optics of Coach Kelly's leaving at an inopportune time, it's best for UCLA as well as for him. He wasn't long for the job, and Mr. Jarmond did well to choose Coach Foster from within, and I've been extremely impressed with coach's energy and passion. I'm expecting this post to be hidden from public view probably because of a word-count, but hopefully you three could read it and become learned.

[@richardthelionheart5594]

Hear, Hear! Just so. Couldn't agree more in haec verba. 1st year now reliably estimated at $50-$75M. Should get to $100M quickly. LA is THE biggest CFB TV market in the country. Love Garbs, he is key. OL will be better: DiGiorgio couldn't be worse, Fina huge upside, Holstege looked good at the end of the year. One OL transfer in hand should contribute, need 1 more. Give Drevno a raise. BS - no mention of "$5-10M" for Cal. No matter. We will treat it as a one time only indebtedness to be paid out over several seasons. If not, we'll quit the UC system. They need us more than vice versa. RB room STACKED, Cameron and Keegan Jones, Harden, Atkins WR Loya, Ford, JMike, new ND guy & sstar freshman Gilmore. Def: got a 6' 7" transfer edge, move Oladejo to edge, (healthy??!) Smith and Taoa. Good showing year 1 in B1G was/is crucial. Couldn't do it w Kelly staying and more players bolting. Good year gets some great recruits/transfers in '25. Jerry to OC?? Hope not but he's sat at Kelly knee for 6 yrs, knows the offense # continuity and knows the preferred play calls.

[@robjohnston366]

@@richardthelionheart5594 Agree with what you said also, and I like Oladejo on the edge. And if Malcolm Jones isn't the back that Coach Foster hopes, put him at LB. I also like the dbacks despite losing Ramsey. Maybe he comes back. This talk about Toia to USC hopefully is put to bed. And we have Gary Smith Jr. most likely coming back along with Kain Medrano. The team will be competitive and I'm sticking with the 8-4 prediction despite one of the toughest scheds in the country. {Edit..} And let me add that I would like to see Collin Schlee become a fast te or a big wr; he has NFL speed/size attributes, with Justyn Martin hopefully becoming second on the qb depthchart.

[@richardthelionheart5594]

@@robjohnston366 Schlee is really just used as a "wildcat" option. Besides he's not good for more than 2 possessions before he gets hurt. Is fast but we're already loaded at WR. Hoping Martin makes great progress. Seemingly hasn't done so yet. But that's our achilles heal. If G goes out we're really screwed. I haven't been very impressed w what I've seen from Cameron Jones yet but if Foster recruited him so vigorously he must see a lot of potential. If not, LB would be good. W/ Norton gone we might be bereft of good LBs soon. Loved Ramsey from jump but have always hated Humphrey. By now, he'll finally prob have a good - consistent - year. Think there is zero chance Taoa jumps especially as his DL coach Malloy (sp?) Malloe is staying (as DC). Over under for # of games Smith can stay on the field is 4 ?? 8-4 is ambitious given our OL, (Garbs goes out), no pass rush and overall lack of depth now on D !? But it can be done. Atkins to MLB if his usefulness in our bull elephant backfield/power T is not effective. Short yardage, was somewhat effective last year.

[@robjohnston366]

@@richardthelionheart5594 Mine was an opposite reaction to Mr. Forde's prediction at 5:43 , but here's UCLA's 2024 schedule and I don't see UCLA "getting crushed" as he stated: Aug. 31 at Hawai'i Sept. 14 vs. Indiana Sept. 21 at LSU Sept. 28 vs. Oregon Oct. 5 at Penn State Oct. 12 vs. Minnesota Oct. 19 at Rutgers Nov. 2 at Nebraska Nov. 9 vs. Iowa Nov. 16 at Washington Nov. 23 vs. USC Nov. 30 vs. Fresno State I'm not going to place wins and losses on any of the 12, but I would say the team should be at least competitive in seven of them, so if they were to take care of business in those games, the team would have to win one in which they wouldn't be favored, at least in the start-of-the-season projections. Would 7-5 be okay? Not in my view; not with the potential on offense, and additionally with the players added on defense -- I thought Coach Kelly did well to unearth what should be a handful, at least, of new contributors on d. We'll miss Coach Lynn, but he also had the talent to plug and play this past season. Obviously Latu's not walking through that door, and neither are the Murphys, but I like what I saw of the Hopkins de on video as well as the Navy player; we'll see if the Miami edge can get over his injuries. Muasau will be missed but he can be replaced because there were at times when he was overpowered, though I'm hoping that that would hopefully be five players that make the NFL including Carl Jones who should get a long look from the defense. We'll miss Alex Johnson also, as well as Karmari Ramsey, but we have Davies, Kirkwood, Justice who had some good action, and the new guys and some other frosh who looked good in spot roles. I like Coach Whitfield a lot; he's helped the corners play much better than they have ever showed. And I agree with the other poster that there were the big two-three before the four from the Pac joined. The Pac this past season was better from top to bottom. I'm not scared of competing against any of the BIG teams, because Michigan will have lost a lot -- I don't know whom they picked up in the portal -- but they're sending 18 to the combine; their new coach undoubtedly looks to be very good also. Ohio State will be great, but I'm not sold on Washington nor Oregon with Dillon Gabriel at qb, and he has been injury prone so Dante could play some.

[@richardthelionheart5594]

​@@robjohnston366 Immediate hire of an OC is critical. BRO proposing several. Again, for at least the first year in the B1G it's imperative we show well so we can get some recruits/tranfers at season's end. Which means we have to have an in-house OC. Better chance of winning using Kelly O superstructure, plays and language. No immediate success starting w a new OC and transforming and adapting to his likes and nomenclature. We already have a superstructure, familiarity, nomenclature, comfort level, a " culture of doing things" we learned we don't want to have to learn some other system. 1000 practice Reps hones execution. Can't waste those reps/muscle memories. So I say we give it to the kid, Little Ricky Neuweisal . He's watched an expert, sitting on his knee for 6 years should know how to make it function even better than "Good". We need more pts than last years. Last year our D allowed us to get bye low scoring. This D won't be as good but I'm looking for 10-15 more pts from the O / per game in 2024. In 2202 we where putting uo 32 , 34, 35 pts / a game . Will happen if the OL shows out like 2022 (and 2021 was good two).LO... superstar Mafi and Gaines off that 2202 team. That hurt. . Only guy we lose off the 23 team is CenterJosh Carlin. Drevno has to be made happy w his deal and he has to show up big. I think he can do it. Hope he hasn't run outta gas Fuck that Kelly. We learned all we need to know from him. Now we're gonna duo it better l

[@estevito2358]

It’s obvious both of you know nothing about West Coast football, stick to your SEC analysis

[@imentekpere6802]

Before the Pac-12 schools joined, outside of 2 teams, and maybe Penn State. The rest of the Big-10 was meh...

[@robjohnston366]

Agree... The Pac was a better league this past season from top to bottom.

[@imentekpere6802]

In fact, the PAC had 76 wins to 65 losses vs the Big-10 all time; 33W - 30L vs Big-10 in the Rose Bowl; & was 194W - 174L vs all the major conferences in total.