It took exactly three weeks for the college football coaching carousel to kick into high gear. No, it wasn't Billy Napier, and no, it wasn't Brent Pry. Instead, the first coach to get the axe in 2025 was Deshaun Foster, who was fired by UCLA on Sunday morning — just a couple of days after an embarrassing home loss to New Mexico dropped the Bruins to 0-3.
A beloved alum in just his second season at the helm after taking over for Chip Kelly, most expected that Foster would have a bit longer leash than this. But this is a fraught time for UCLA football, with their place in the Big Ten unsettled and the Rose Bowl getting more and more cavernous by the game. This is a program in desperate need of a jolt if it's going to compete at this level, and Foster had offered precious little evidence that he was the man for that job.
So, who is? That's a tricky question to answer; it's been a while since we saw this program truly relevant, after all, and that was a whole other conference ago. But with the Bruins back on the market, here are six names they'd be crazy not to consider.
6. Utah OC Jason Beck
Beck is a California guy: He grew up in Oxnard and bounced around the JuCo ranks before eventually serving as a backup quarterback for BYU in the mid-2000s. It's safe to say that he knows how to recruit the West Coast, especially after spending the 2024 season at New Mexico.
Just as importantly for the Bruins' purposes, though, he's one of the brightest young offensive minds in the sport, the architect of a scheme that has maximized the skill set of QB Devon Dampier — another tremendous athlete who maybe isn't the most polished passer in the world. Beck and Dampier made magic together at New Mexico last year, and they're doing the same this year after moving offer to Utah in the offseason.
Granted, Beck has zero head-coaching experience, and his track record as a play caller isn't a particularly lengthy one. But at this point, UCLA needs to try and zig where everyone else is zagging, and Beck has already shown to be an awfully inventive guy who knows how to do more with less.
5. UNLV head coach Dan Mullen
It didn't work out at Florida for a variety of reasons, but don't get it twisted: Mullen didn't suddenly forget how to coach offense. He's made that abundantly clear so far at UNLV, where he's off to a 3-0 start — including a win over UCLA in Week 2.
After the Chip Kelly experience, you'd forgive Bruins fans if they weren't thrilled at the prospect of another prickly offensive mind from New England who'd much rather draw up ball plays than hit the recruiting trail. He's not a West Coast guy, and he's not going to glad-hand and drum up excitement for a program that desperately needs it. But if there's anyone who could salvage Iamaleava, it's Mullen, and he's the most proven commodity that UCLA could reasonably target here.
4. New Mexico head coach Jason Eck
Maybe UCLA should just make sure Eck doesn't get on a plane. After all, his New Mexico squad just put it on the Bruins in the Rose Bowl to the tune of a 35-10 win this week. That performance moved the Lobos to 2-1 on the season — an awfully impressive start, considering just how difficult that job has historically been and just how bare the cupboard appeared to be when Bronco Mendenhall left town at the end of last season (and Beck departed for Utah).
Then again, this is hardly Eck's first rodeo (or rebuild). After working his way up as an assistant at various Big Sky powers like Montana State and South Dakote State, he took over as the head man at Idaho, leading the Vandals to consecutive FCS quarterfinal appearances in 2023 and 2024. He's among the sport's foremost mad scientists, willing to try anything and everything to give his team the slightest competitive advantage (just ask Michigan, whom he annoyed for a full 60 minutes in Week 1). UCLA needs that sort of Moneyball spark, especially from a guy who knows how to unearth talent on the West Coast.
3. Oklahoma OC Ben Arbuckle
Maybe this is a long shot, considering the relatively limited resources that UCLA has poured into its football program in recent years and how in-demand Arbuckle figures to be if the Oklahoma offense keeps rolling like it has been to start the season. But the Bruins have the advantage of being a Big Ten job, with the structural advantages that entails, and Arbuckle should at least take the call — there are only so many of these openings, after all.
From UCLA's perspective ... I mean, what's not to like? Arbuckle is young and without head coaching experience, but his track record as an OC is pretty exemplary, from Western Kentucky (where he helped Bailey Zappe put up video game numbers) to Washington State last season and now in Norman. He's on the cutting edge of college offense, and his scheme has turned a raw dual-threat in John Mateer into a Heisman candidate.
2. Florida State DC Tony White
White might not be quite as flashy as the other names on this list, but he checks just about every box. He's a heck of a coach, for starters, having revamped the Nebraska defense under Matt Rhule before doing the same at Florida State this season. He's also a passionate UCLA alum who served as a grad assistant with the Bruins at the start of his coaching career back in 2007.
If you're picking nits here, White has never been a head coach at the college level, and hiring a defensive guy does raise questions about what your plan is on offense. But as a program builder, White seems like a pretty ideal fit, and learning under Rhule for a couple of years should help him establish a blueprint for what running his own team should look like. We don't blame Bruins fans who are spooked by the alumnus route after Foster, but White's resume is a lot more robust than Foster's was when he was handed the keys.
1. USF head coach Alex Golesh
Golesh has no ties to the West Coast; he's a Midwestern guy through and through, an Ohio State grad who spent time at Northern Illinois, Toledo, Illinois and Iowa State before landing on Josh Heupel's staff at UCF. From there, the pair went to Tennessee, where they recruited a five-star quarterback by the name of Nico Iamaleava.
Of course UCLA shouldn't make this decision solely based on what would be best for Iamaleava in the short term. But they are pretty heavily invested in him at this point, and what better coach to get the most out of him than the offensive coordinator who he first committed to a few years ago? We know that Iamaleava likes this scheme, and we know that Golesh knows how to run a program based on the strides South Florida has made under his watch.