UCLA hosted from within promoting RB coach Foster. He’s been at UCLA since 2016 and one year at Texas Tech. Foster was supposed to need joining the raiders as RB coach but is now a HC.
I think he’s going to have some interesting challenges. Their roster needs an upgrade and I don’t think he’ll be able to pull off what Colorado did last year in terms of transfers.
Long term, UCLA still has name recognition, especially on the west coast.
This seems like a temporary hire but I cannot fathom that. Going from RB coach to HC is quite a big step.
The annual coaching carousel can become a game of musical chairs at the end, and it would not be wrong to say UCLA got caught standing (without a coach) when the music stopped. So, it wouldn’t be surprising to see another change at the end of the 2024 season, or maybe he’ll prove up to the task, like David Braun did at Northwestern, and Fitz before him when Walker died during the summer, both first-time head coaches.
I will note that UCLA probably got the toughest schedule of the new Big Ten teams, but Nebraska got handed a heavy schedule that first year, too.