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Posted
39 minutes ago, CurlyDumps said:

I'm sure they would love to. Is that even a lateral move at this point? I don't see Deon taking on another apathetic rock bottom situation. If he leaves it'll be for a much better job than UCLA.

His personality and style is probably more suited for LA, but the Big 12 is an easier league than the B1G, with less shitty travel.  I mean, it's not great (Boulder to Morgantown/Cincinnati/Orlando), but it beats LA to Piscataway/Happy Valley/College Park

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Posted
2 hours ago, DFW Horn said:

A reporter should've followed up with, "What do the initials L.A. stand for?" to see if Foster knew.

I have my doubts

Could Foster be Charlie Strong dumb? That's a pretty high bar, but I guess in theory . . .

Posted
48 minutes ago, Royale with cheese said:

Could Foster be Charlie Strong dumb? That's a pretty high bar, but I guess in theory . . .

Charlie was way more eloquent than Foster. I wouldn't want to giftwrap either's IQ, but I'd give Strong a slight edge.

Dumb & Dumber

Posted
On 9/15/2025 at 10:22 AM, LTbear said:

As a Berkeley grad, I'm no defender of UCLA, but if I were to pin the Pac 12's demise on any school, it's USC, and in reality it's just Larry Scott. UCLA always felt like they were just along for the ride in the B1G move. 

As a Berkeley grad, you’re not looking at the Tree?  They held an inordinate amount of power in the Pac. I always felt it was their influence on Larry was what led him to the brilliant idea of focusing on the Olympic sports, which can’t pay for themselves, instead of focusing on the one thing that funds all of the other programs. SC left because they had to. UCLA should be diverting a good portion of their BIG share to SC for being close and agreeing to take them. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Frieda’s Boss said:

As a Berkeley grad, you’re not looking at the Tree?  They held an inordinate amount of power in the Pac. I always felt it was their influence on Larry was what led him to the brilliant idea of focusing on the Olympic sports, which can’t pay for themselves, instead of focusing on the one thing that funds all of the other programs. SC left because they had to. UCLA should be diverting a good portion of their BIG share to SC for being close and agreeing to take them. 

Nah. Stanford nearly had nearly as much control as internet rumors like to postulate. Larry Scott was a dumbass who came from the world of tennis and wasted insane amounts of money while overpaying himself. 

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Posted

Rumors that Nico is hitting the transfer portal again and Rhett Lashlee is being targeted as a potential candidate to take the HC job next season

Posted
Quote

Clusters of weary fans trudged into the twilight, rumbling frustrations by halftime. Meanwhile, the stragglers lingering in the hollowed stands of the Rose Bowl watched in disbelief as New Mexico — New Mexico — ballooned the lead to 25 before the clock bled out and Bruins in uniform appeared numb to the humiliation.

DeShaun Foster hunched over, palms pressed to his knees as he wore the look of a man awaiting the inevitable. The Lobos had never outclassed a Big Ten team until UCLA ensured their first win came easily last Friday. That would’ve been the moment for fury — headsets spiked and clipboards splintered. But UCLA’s sideline remained eerily still, coaches gazing blankly through a blowout defeat that seemed to have become routine.

The inevitable didn’t wait. A season only three weeks old — and Foster’s dream job just 15 games young — imploded with the head coach’s dismissal two days later.

With interim Tim Skipper steering the wreckage, the Bruins flounder at 0-3, carrying nothing but the dead weight of national mockery. A program once draped in glamour has curdled into parody — 11 years removed from its last 10-win season, averaging 44,000 fans in a 90,000-seat Rose Bowl and written off by its own alumni as a “sinking ship.”

The Bruins flirted with the AP Top 25 just two seasons ago. Now, the UCLA brand wanders aimlessly, its patches of success fleeting reminders of what’s possible.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6642637/2025/09/19/ucla-football-deshaun-foster-martin-jarmond/

Does this seem AI generated by anyone else? The over the top use of figure language, the non-human feel of the writing about college football, and the overuse of em dashes is a giveaway.

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Posted
5 hours ago, Slater said:

Rumors that Nico is hitting the transfer portal again and Rhett Lashlee is being targeted as a potential candidate to take the HC job next season

What would be Lashlee's motivation to take that gig? SMU can match whatever UCLA offers him. 

It's not like he's from the West Coast.

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  • blacklab changed the title to UCLA's return to dominance no longer featuring DeShaun Foster
Posted
12 hours ago, Slater said:

Rumors that Nico is hitting the transfer portal again and Rhett Lashlee is being targeted as a potential candidate to take the HC job next season

First time this was posted was by a TCU troll account on Twitter.

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Posted
18 hours ago, Incredulity said:

he was Sarks bag man at UW and USC.  

A top ($$$) recruiter by reputation, NOT a X's and O's genius.

That's kind of worked for Miami with Cristobal. But they have legit NIL.

Posted (edited)
11 hours ago, Vermin said:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6642637/2025/09/19/ucla-football-deshaun-foster-martin-jarmond/

Does this seem AI generated by anyone else? The over the top use of figure language, the non-human feel of the writing about college football, and the overuse of em dashes is a giveaway.

Where does the dashes = ai trope come from?  Humans have been overusing dashes for a long time.

Edited by WBT
Posted
[mention=1357]Sbbruin[/mention]  Since you're closest to this program, who might be best choice for new Head Coach of bruins?

It's way too early to even speculate. But I do think a young energetic coordinator might be a better call than a sitting HC, unless it's a young G5 coach.
Posted
12 hours ago, Sbbruin said:


It's way too early to even speculate. But I do think a young energetic coordinator might be a better call than a sitting HC, unless it's a young G5 coach.

Billy Napier should be available!  Scared money don't make money, or apparently 1st downs

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Posted
On 9/19/2025 at 1:05 PM, Frieda’s Boss said:

As a Berkeley grad, you’re not looking at the Tree?  They held an inordinate amount of power in the Pac. I always felt it was their influence on Larry was what led him to the brilliant idea of focusing on the Olympic sports, which can’t pay for themselves, instead of focusing on the one thing that funds all of the other programs. SC left because they had to. UCLA should be diverting a good portion of their BIG share to SC for being close and agreeing to take them. 

Didn’t they block us from joining the PAC the first go round?

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Posted
On 9/19/2025 at 10:37 PM, DFW Horn said:

What would be Lashlee's motivation to take that gig? SMU can match whatever UCLA offers him. 

It's not like he's from the West Coast.

a man wearing sunglasses and a suit is laughing and smiling .

Posted
On 9/23/2025 at 6:47 PM, Sbbruin said:


It's way too early to even speculate. But I do think a young energetic coordinator might be a better call than a sitting HC, unless it's a young G5 coach.

I would be going after the Tulane HC, someone from the Oregon staff, but my whale would be D'anton Lynn.  

Posted
38 minutes ago, Vertigo said:

I would be going after the Tulane HC, someone from the Oregon staff, but my whale would be D'anton Lynn.  

Give us background on why you like Lynn so much, so we can judge you and not look shit up for ourselves. I don't think I've seen USC yet this year and last year's output was an obvious improvement, but still messy. 

I am just not sure it matters who UCLA hires if the school and supporters aren't going to be aggressive in enabling the guy to compete for talent. I know the Big 10 is being heavy-handed with the pressuring of UCLA to do better, but UCLA seems to not really give a fuck. 

If they were actually supported, the guy I would like to see in a place like UCLA, just as a CFB fan, is Will Stein. When UCLA has had great offenses, they've been a fun team to watch, especially if USC is flipping its shit because UCLA is making them look stupid. Rare, but memorable. The late 90's were funny in that regard. 

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Posted

Never in the course of human history has ucla dominated anything in football*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*except that one time in 1997

Posted
2 hours ago, Gidnik said:

Never in the course of human history has ucla dominated anything in football*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*except that one time in 1997

 

801EE545-362C-4778-B6E9-3F2619C9A94B.gif

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Posted

I would like UCLA to take Mark Stoops away from UK. It would good for him to go a state where everyone doesn't hate him. He will accept payment in doughnuts and cheeseburgers. 

Posted

UCLA should give up on football and just be a basketball school. 

The football team should be mostly grad transfers who are looking to get a grad degree paid for and little else.

Posted
On 9/23/2025 at 7:47 PM, Sbbruin said:


It's way too early to even speculate. But I do think a young energetic coordinator might be a better call than a sitting HC, unless it's a young G5 coach.

I think 25 years ago I'd completely agree with you but, the landscape has changed so much that I'm not sure if it is good for young coaches to take these massive rebuilding jobs. The key now is how much money can we spend. It's not about recruiting high school players and being young and energetic.

So many of these kids are being money-whipped and if the donor base isn't there, and I'd say for so many more schools than fans want to admit it's not there. 

I don't know what is the answer. A few years ago Pitt lost its defensive line coach. He was generally regarded as one of the top couple guys in America and he didn't want to deal with the crap anymore so he went to the NFL and the Broncos.

I don't think college football is in a very good spot right now.

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Posted
1 hour ago, PittsburghTiger said:

I think 25 years ago I'd completely agree with you but, the landscape has changed so much that I'm not sure if it is good for young coaches to take these massive rebuilding jobs. The key now is how much money can we spend. It's not about recruiting high school players and being young and energetic.

So many of these kids are being money-whipped and if the donor base isn't there, and I'd say for so many more schools than fans want to admit it's not there. 

I don't know what is the answer. A few years ago Pitt lost its defensive line coach. He was generally regarded as one of the top couple guys in America and he didn't want to deal with the crap anymore so he went to the NFL and the Broncos.

I don't think college football is in a very good spot right now.

I agree on all points.  The donors APPEAR ready to step up, with conditions.  Not step up to Texas, Oregon, OSU levels, but to "competitive" levels, whatever that means.  But yes, CFB is in a very precarious position.

Posted

AD Jarmond is getting skewered, as he should be.  Emailing a list of donors and amounts?  Fireable with cause if you ask me.

Spoiler
  • Nearly a dozen high-level UCLA donors allege rampant dysfunction under athletic director Martin Jarmond’s leadership.
  • Personal information for more than 200 donors was accidentally emailed to a small group of donors. They say Jarmond never responded to the incident.
  • Jarmond defended his work, saying the Bruins’ fundraising is thriving and he is confident the school will hire a great football coach.

Martin Jarmond is not a particularly popular figure these days.

Some fans frustrated by UCLA’s winless football team are expected to wear “Fire Jarmond” shirts in blue and gold to Saturday’s game at the Rose Bowl against Penn State. One group has organized an airplane banner to fly over the stadium before the game, with a similar message directed at the beleaguered Bruins athletic director.

The list of grievances is a lengthy one, leading a group of nearly a dozen high-level donors to reach out to The Times about what they allege is a pattern of rampant dysfunction inside the athletic department that goes well beyond the surprise hiring and speedy dismissal of football coach DeShaun Foster on Sept. 14 after only 15 games.

Among other things, the donors also questioned Jarmond’s name, image and likeness strategy, high spending despite years of running up massive athletic department deficits and failure to fire coach Chip Kelly amid subpar results.

 
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“What’s happening now feels like watching a trainwreck in slow motion,” said Scott Tretsky, a donor and season ticket-holder for more than two decades. “What we’re seeing isn’t just a rough patch. It’s institutional apathy. And if the administration doesn’t care, why should fans and recruits?

 

 

“This isn’t a casual fan speaking. I rarely miss a game. I’ve invested time, money, and emotion for decades, and right now, it feels like the people running the show don’t share that same investment. This program could thrive. It has the history, the fan base, the resources. But it needs leadership with courage and a real plan. Right now, we have neither.”

One misstep made a donor question whether operations inside Jarmond’s athletic department were even worse than they appeared on a surface level.

Ten days before a group of donors departed for a trip to watch UCLA’s football team play Utah in 2023, an email outlining the itinerary was sent with an unexpected attachment — a database revealing personal information and spending habits of the athletic department’s biggest supporters.

Included in the spreadsheet sent to several dozen donors was the home address, email address and phone numbers of Bruins football legend Troy Aikman. Separate columns included the lifetime giving and annual Wooden Athletic Fund contributions of more than 200 top donors such as sports executive Casey Wasserman, ice cream magnate Justin Woolverton and philanthropist Wallis Annenberg, with each donor assigned a priority number based on their level of generosity.

 
UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond stands alongside UCLA football coach DeShaun Foster during his introductory news conference. 
(Damian Dovarganes/AP)
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The donor, who did not want to his name published because of the sensitivity of the data in the spreadsheet, told The Times he spoke with others who were equally incredulous about receiving such revealing information in the email from an associate athletic director for fundraising who is no longer employed by UCLA.

There was no apology or further communication besides a follow-up email from the associate athletic director sent 26 minutes after the first one, simply recalling the message. A UCLA athletic department spokesperson declined to comment about the incident other than to say the employee involved in the unauthorized distribution of information and his direct supervisor no longer worked for the university.

“I would assume with something like this where they knew what happened, they should just do something like say, ‘I’m so sorry, this was an internal working file, we’re doing everything we can’ to rectify it. Just something,” the donor who received the information said. “If I wanted to pitch something to Troy Aikman, I have the information to do it with.”

Soon after Jarmond and another athletic department staffer were informed that The Times was writing about Jarmond’s stewardship of the athletic department, five donors called to speak on Jarmond’s behalf. They cited financial constraints that prevented the athletic director from firing Kelly, Foster’s hiring as his attempt to make the best of a bad situation and a belief that Jarmond could help raise the resources needed to hire a far more successful replacement.

Jarmond pointed to fundraising being in a good place after UCLA tallied more than $42 million in cash and pledges during its first year in the Big Ten, the second-highest fundraising year in UCLA athletics history.

But some donors have already decided they are giving up on big giving.

As a result of his unhappiness with the way the athletic department is being run, one donor who was close to joining the 1919 Society that recognizes those who have given at least $1 million said he had abandoned that endeavor.

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Voices
Sept. 14, 2025

Part of his dissatisfaction is rooted in a dinner conversation with Jarmond at a Tucson steakhouse before UCLA played Arizona in October 2021. Asked to share his favorite UCLA sports moment, the donor said it was the football team’s having won three Rose Bowls and a Fiesta Bowl while he was a student in the early to mid-1980s.

According to the donor and two others at the table, Jarmond called the donor’s expectations unrealistic and said that historically, UCLA had won an average of seven to eight games a year, suggesting those should be the expectations going forward.

Asked about the exchange, Jarmond said that “without getting into specifics of my conversations with any one individual, my intended message whenever this subject arises is that dynasties in college football are increasingly rare. In today’s environment, with the implementation of revenue-sharing, NIL and the transfer portal, it’s harder than ever to sustain success at the highest level. But that doesn’t mean it’s not the goal. Competing for championships is and always has been core to our mission.”

Several donors questioned the commitment to NIL within Jarmond’s athletic department.

After one donor made a second large NIL contribution, he said, he was chided by one high-ranking athletics official who told him that his money would have been better spent going to the Wooden Athletic Fund that supports the entire department. Donors have criticized Jarmond for not getting Kelly to do more work to support the football team’s NIL efforts, leading to the team lagging far behind its conference counterparts, and was also slow to publicly recognize and support Men of Westwood, the collective spearheading UCLA’s NIL endeavors.

Several donors said UCLA has misunderstood NIL from the start, using small initiatives such as Westwood Exchange as a substitute for more robust measures that would help the Bruins stay more competitive with other schools. Once revenue sharing started this summer, allowing the school to pay athletes directly, UCLA further de-emphasized the importance of having a thriving NIL program even though it’s widely believed that the new model will eventually resemble the old one.

Jarmond pointed to UCLA’s partnering with NIL agency Article 41 to enhance athletes’ personal brands and social media presence as evidence of the school’s commitment to being on the forefront of the NIL space.

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“We’re gonna provide whoever the next [football] coach is with the resources and a financial investment that we haven’t done before, quite frankly,” Jarmond said.

UCLA teams have won six NCAA championships under Jarmond’s watch and posted more conference titles last season than any other Big Ten team. The move to the Big Ten is also expected to provide additional revenue to help stabilize the athletic department’s finances, which required a university bailout and drew a sharp rebuke from the executive board of the school’s academic senate after running $219.55 million in the red over the last six fiscal years.

Jim Bendat, a men’s basketball season ticket-holder and longtime fan, said the athletic director faced some unique challenges that constrained his success with the football program.

“I have some sympathy for Jarmond,” Bendat said. “Money had to be an issue when he arguably should have fired Kelly immediately after the ‘23 season. Then the timing of Kelly’s departure put Jarmond in a nearly impossible situation. Basketball, baseball, softball and Olympic sports are doing fine. Is it fair to give credit for those successes only to the coaches and players, but blame only Jarmond for football failures? I don’t think that’s fair at all.

“Because football is the cash cow, that’s the big focus. I say give this AD another chance to get this right. It will be the biggest hire he will ever make, and he has to get it right this time.”

Criticisms of Jarmond, however, are growing louder and have been brewing for years.

 

 

 

Sept. 13, 2025

Past concerns have involved a lack of communication when UCLA abruptly pulled out of the 2021 Holiday Bowl over COVID-19 concerns only a few hours before the scheduled kickoff. North Carolina State coach Dave Doeren blasted the Bruins for a lack of transparency about their roster situation that prevented the Wolfpack from having a backup plan, saying, “We felt lied to, to be honest.”

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Jarmond said he was prioritizing the health and safety of the players and the Bruins had every intention of playing had they been able to do so responsibly.

Only a month later, Jarmond faced backlash for being slow to wade into a controversy involving a racial slur used by a member of the women’s gymnastics team. Jarmond met with the team only after Margzetta Frazier and Norah Flatley tweeted to request his help, and Frazier later described a statement that Jarmond released about the situation as “discouraging” based on the athletic department’s response to the scandal being “performative.”

Perhaps Jarmond’s biggest challenge has been an underperforming football team that’s drawn record-low crowds at the Rose Bowl.

 

 

Sept. 14, 2025

Foster’s quick flameout after a little more than one season has led to a new opening inside the athletic department while leading a growing contingent of donors and fans to demand one more. A petition to have Jarmond resign or be removed has collected more than 1,400 signatures and a mobile billboard truck circulated Westwood last week with messages such as “UCLA Football Deserves Better Fire AD Martin Jarmond” and “$7 Million Buyout for UCLA’s AD? Failure Never Paid So Well.”

According to the terms of the contract extension he signed in May 2024 — at a time when UCLA was transitioning from outgoing chancellor Gene Block to successor Julio Frenk — Jarmond, 45, would be owed roughly $7.1 million, or the full amount of his remaining contract that runs through June 30, 2029, if he was terminated without cause.

“No single person has done more to damage the legacy and potential of UCLA football than Martin Jarmond,” said Ryan Bernard, one of the organizers of the mobile billboard truck. “From his inability to fire Chip Kelly to his unjustifiable, lazy hire of a recently departed running backs coach as head coach, Jarmond’s performance has been abysmal.”

 

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