UCLA once again finds itself in a coaching quagmire, having fired DeShaun Foster just three games into his second season. But how did UCLA get here again? Is it the school? The fan base? Is it the school’s administration? Or is this just the reality of life with UCLA football? A handful of former UCLA players are speaking out on the topic in exclusive interviews with Last Word.
We reached out to eight former players for interviews. Five of them agreed to speak with us, with two of them asking that we not use their names because they still have football-related business matters with UCLA and other West Coast schools. Some of them were on the Zoom call with athletic director Martin Jarmond that we reported on last week. We conducted more than six hours of interviews over three days, individually with the five players who agreed to talk with us.
The Interviews
The players we spoke with were, in no particular order, Charles Arbuckle (tight end 1986-1989); Anthony Cobbs (defensive back 1993-1996); Paul Bergmann (tight end 1982-83). The two players who spoke with us on the condition that we not use their names were an offensive lineman (2001-2004) and a defensive back (2001-2004).
DeShaun Foster’s Time
Without fail, each of the former UCLA players expressed sympathy for the recently fired DeShaun Foster. “We love DeShaun Foster as a teammate, as a Bruin, as a man,” Cobbs told us. “I think he was put in a very difficult position, not having any coordinator experience. Those of us who have played know that a coordinator is basically the head coach of that side of the ball.”
Arbuckle now works for ESPN as a game analyst. He said he was not sure Foster got a fair shake with the job, but added, “But also when you are put in the position where you are not quite ready for it, you need to make sure you have all the tools and resources,” he said. “And I think from the very beginning he wasn’t ready in that way.”
Arbuckle pointed out the unfortunate start Foster got at Big Ten Media Days last year, where he seemed unprepared for his presentation. “There are too many of us now in the media that can help, all across the country, that have done this long enough. If that’s not what he’s comfortable with, make sure you have somebody there with him so that doesn’t happen. That wouldn’t have happened back in the day,” he added. “So to me that was a travesty at the beginning.”
Photo of Charles Arbuckle courtesy Getty Images
How Did The Foster Debacle Happen?
How did UCLA put itself in a position to have the massive slide, both on and off the field? Foster was given the job in mid-February 2024, just a few weeks before Spring camp was scheduled to start. That was nearly two months into Chip Kelly openly shopping himself around for an offensive coordinator job in college football and in the NFL.
That came on the heels of Kelly taking a long time to sign his contract extension in December of 2021. Jarmond had not given him a time deadline to sign or move on. In both cases, other experienced coaches who could have been pursued by UCLA took jobs elsewhere.
Jarmond’s Roll
Cobbs says that it falls on the athletic director. “The savviness of a Chip Kelly who knows the system and knows how these things work,” he said, adding that the relative youth of Jarmond allowed Kelly to move the pieces on the board. “He [Kelly] did work him [Jarmond] a little bit. And that’s what Chip Kelly has been doing with every organization he’s been with for the last 10 years.” Cobbs said of the Kelly era, “We were bamboozled.”
Arbuckle addressed the same issue by saying there is too often a lack of respect for the program. He said that it is not being handled from within the athletic department. “Sometimes you have to have people around you that can tell you, ‘This is what’s going on, and we need to make sure this coach isn’t doing this, this, and this.’ It’s much easier said than done. But as I’ve watched athletic directors or really strong general managers, if they are really in charge of the program, they wouldn’t let a coach do that.”
The History of Coaching Choices
The search for a new coach has some of our interviewees concerned based on UCLA’s history in the post-Terry Donahue era. Then-athletic director Peter Dalis promoted offensive coordinator Bob Toledo when Donahue retired at the end of the 1995 season.
UCLA was within minutes on a fateful December day in 1998 in Miami of playing for the first-ever BCS championship. The Bruins have not been close in the 27 years since. Toledo was fired after the 2002 season.
It was on to former UCLA wide receiver Karl Dorrell, who had never been more than a position coach before. He went 35-27 over five seasons. Dorrell was fired and replaced by his former teammate, Rick Neuheisel. He had been the head coach at Colorado for four years and at Washington for four years before being dismissed from both schools for completely different reasons.
The former offensive lineman, whom we spoke to with the promise of not using his name, said the outcomes of those coaching eras were predictable. “Karl is a great Bruin first and foremost. But we felt like he was unprepared for the job of running the entire football program,” he said. “And Rick was very charismatic, and he knew what to do right when he came in. But in hindsight, he has always been better at the beginning.”
Neuheisel spent exactly four years at each of his college head coaching jobs. His combined record in his first two years was 49-24. His combined record in his last two seasons was 38-35.
Is It Arrogance Or Laziness?
One of the topics that came up on the Zoom call two Sundays ago came from some former Bruin players who are now local high school coaches. The stories are numerous of Southern California high school coaches reaching out to the UCLA football offices to talk about some prospects, or to send game tapes of the players. Stories abound that the outreach was ignored by the school, even as it came from within UCLA’s own football family.
Bergmann told us he has seen it firsthand. He played his high school ball at Granada Hills High School, on the receiving end of passes from quarterback John Elway. Bergmann was drafted by the Jacksonville Bulls of the USFL when he finished at UCLA. He knows the local landscape. He has lived in Ojai for more than two decades now and is retired. But he has stayed close to the Southern California high school football landscape.
He recounted a story to us that happened early in the Kelly era at UCLA. Bergmann said a local high school coach reached out to him to try to get help getting one of his players in front of UCLA. The coach had not been getting his calls returned. Bergmann also got nowhere with the football offices, despite his history with the school.
“It was almost this arrogance,” he said. “I hate to use that word, but that’s kind of what it felt like. There was this arrogance or indifference to people reaching out to them. And then I watched things deteriorate.” That recruit went to Colorado, starting 30 games on the offensive line before finishing his college career at Florida State. Bergmann said he has stopped trying to hook up players with his alma mater. “I shouldn’t care more than they do,” he said of the football program.
Bergmann said UCLA is giving the impression that it is living off its past success, and “Making kids feel like they are privileged if UCLA talks to them, rather than we are privileged to have you come here. And that could be a hurdle.”
The Impact on the Locals
Cobbs played for Arizona and New Orleans in the NFL. He now owns and operates AC Media Productions, and he is an instructor at Norwalk High School. Cobbs, too, is a local product, having played his high school football at Long Beach Poly. He said UCLA over the years has not adapted to the changing landscape of college football, where no matter where you go for college football, the games are on TV. “If I’m a [local] head coach and I have a prospect, I’m not going to give you a kid who can’t play. But I’m going to tell you this kid would be a good Bruin.” But Cobbs said the flight of local prospects to other schools across the country is often because they did not get enough attention from UCLA.
The former defensive back, whom we spoke to with the promise of not using his name, still has ties to local high school recruiting. He said he talks with parents weekly. He said before Foster was named head coach, there was a lack of UCLA being high on many of their radars. “The effort wasn’t there from UCLA. But it was from schools all across the country. You can’t build loyalty toward your program if you don’t put in the effort,” he said. “And that effort is not a thing you can do from time to time. It has to be sustained over the long haul.”
The Excuses
All five of the interview participants scoffed at the excuses made by national media outlets that UCLA spends no money on football or needs an on-campus stadium. Our offensive line interviewee called those “Tired lines by people who don’t do the work to know any better.”
Recent reporting by Ben Bolch of the LA Times reveals that the $200 million debt that the athletic department accumulated over the last decade is being dealt with by the school administration. Historically, athletic department revenue gets funneled into other on-campus departments. Those deals are being re-done in an effort to ease down the athletic department debt.
And as for the on-campus stadium? Bergmann, who played at UCLA earlier than any of our other interview subjects, said, “Yeah, we don’t have an on-campus stadium. We can’t. The whole time I was there, it was like, ‘How the hell is that going to happen?’”
The Home
UCLA has a lease with the Rose Bowl through 2044 with no out clauses. And there is no chance the high-property-tax paying citizens of Bel-Air, Beverly Hills, Brentwood, etc., (the areas around the UCLA campus), are ever going to allow for a 40,000-person crowd to be funneled through their neighborhoods from an on-campus stadium.
Arbuckle was a fifth-round draft pick by the New Orleans Saints after his playing days at UCLA. His NFL career included stints with the Browns, Chargers, Colts, and Packers. He travels the country covering college football for ESPN. He said playing in the Rose Bowl was a huge part of the sell when he was being recruited out of Houston, Texas. To a man, they all shared memories of playing there when it was packed. They each said all it takes is winning to get the crowds again. Cobbs said that is what it takes to keep UCLA top of mind for recruits and fans alike.
The Distance
Each of the former players we talked with said there is a long-standing distance between UCLA’s past and present. “I’m not looking to sound like a diva,” the defensive back said. “I’m not asking for sideline passes for every game. But if I have a few kids from a local youth group, how is it that the best I can get is some seats at the top of the Rose Bowl next to the visiting fans? After all I put into the football program?”
Cobbs said the UCLA administration has removed any incentive for former players to come back and support the program.
Bergmann has not been around the school much at all for a decade, in his estimation. He has been on campus for personal reasons with his family, but has not been around athletics much. He said there is very little outreach from the athletic department unless money is involved.
Cobbs said the school lacks a centralized person or office to serve as an outreach contact for alumni players. It’s something he says that most major programs have.
Arbuckle attributed some of that issue to a lapse in communication between Jarmond and former athletes. He said, referring to last week’s Zoom call with 100+ former football players, “Those calls should be taking place all the time. It shouldn’t be just because there is a crisis. Really good communicators and people that know how to manage, they do that constantly. They don’t wait until things go awry.” He suggested there are former players who don’t ever want to go back to events because they do not feel welcomed by the UCLA athletic department or administration. “And that’s not good if you’re not letting guys who played a pivotal role in building that program feel welcomed.”
The Fix and the Future
This is where things get complicated. There is no magic wand to fix what ails UCLA football. That aforementioned disconnect between former players and the athletic department has also been the case between the school’s administration and the athletic department.
Gene Block was chancellor of UCLA from 2007 to 2024. He notoriously paid as little attention to the athletic department as he could, while still running the school. As UCLA’s athletic department debt climbed, the best he offered was a low-interest loan from the school to the athletic department.
Albert Carnesale ran UCLA from 1997 to 2006. Having come from Harvard, his professed focus was to turn UCLA into the Harvard of the West. The school is routinely rated as one of the top two public schools in the country by US News and World Report. But Carnesale sought a loftier ranking. Then-athletic director Dan Guerrero (2002-2020) was on his own much of the time for better or for worse.
New Leadership
As of January, UCLA has a new chancellor. Julio Frenk comes to UCLA from the University of Miami, a school where football success has been used to help the financial well-being of the entire university.
Frenk has already done interviews where he has said he is going to be very involved in the search for the new head coach. He also said he is going to be involved in an ongoing fashion with the athletic department.
Arbuckle puts some weight on the change at the top. “I think it’s having the new chancellor that really understands the value of having a really strong football program, but also an athletics program overall.”
Bergmann said of the current status of the program, “I absolutely love UCLA. And I am devastated by where we are.” He said that without changes from the top down, he has long-term concerns. “The landscape and the game have changed so much,” he said. “I want us to be relevant again.” He said fixing what he called the “multi-level dysfunction” with the athletic department and the university administration has to be a top priority.
Public Spat
There was a reluctance from the offensive lineman and the defensive back to put all the blame on Jarmond. They both cited obstacles that came from the school’s administration over the past three decades. But they were also not inclined to give him a free pass for what the defensive back called “The current morass.”
There is an online petition via Change.org calling for the resignation of Jarmond. As of the writing of this article, it has nearly 900 signatures. Change.org provided us with the email address of the originator of the petition. We tracked the email to Michael Farr, a receiver at UCLA from 1986 to 1989. He is also the son of UCLA football legend Mel Farr and the brother of former UCLA running back Mel Farr Jr.
The Past and the Future
The older players harkened back to what they thought of as the good old days. That would be during the tenure of Chancellor Charles Young (in office 1968-1997). Young was such an enthusiastic supporter of UCLA athletics that he zealously prowled the sidelines of home football games. Terry Donahue used to tell stories of how game officials had to warn him about potential 15-yard penalties for how much Young was yelling at the referee.
Arbuckle said UCLA football can be on the national landscape again. “But there is an attention to detail that you know is happening at other places that is not happening the way you need it to happen at UCLA.”
He said even with the program being down, there is a large network of former players who would step up to help. He said it is up to UCLA’s athletic department and the school to do more to include them. “Things don’t get better just because you want them to get better,” he said. “Wishing or hoping is not a strategy. You have to put some effort into it.” He said it starts with remembering those who helped build the success in the football program.
*We did not provide post-UCLA profiles for the two players who asked us to exclude their names in order to secure the privacy they requested.
Main Image: Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images
The post Exclusive: Former UCLA Players Speaking Out About the Program appeared first on Last Word on College Football.