WESTWOOD — Tim Skipper lurked in the background of the Wasserman Football Center since joining UCLA football in mid-July.
Yes, he was at the program’s fall Costa Mesa training camp and helped arrange practice schedules for then-head coach DeShaun Foster from week to week. But Skipper’s pulse was not in the on-the-field operations for the Bruins (0-3) and their no-good, very bad start to the 2025 season, a slumbering crash course that led to Foster’s firing Sunday.
Offensive lineman Garrett DiGiorgio said he didn’t know Skipper before Sunday’s meeting when athletic director Martin Jarmond introduced the former Fresno State interim coach as taking up UCLA’s interim mantle. DiGiorigio, the longest-tenured starter on the Bruins, said he searched online for what he could learn about Skipper before practices began Monday, assessing his new coach’s energy in team practices and meetings since then.
Skipper, a close friend and former special assistant to Foster, had his first hurrah in front of the Los Angeles press corps – one that included far more cameras than weeks prior, with lenient media restrictions allowing photo and video during a practice period Wednesday – and stepped to the podium.
“Name’s Tim Skipper – feel free to call me Skip, that’s not offensive to me,” Skipper said, moments after shaking hands with every individual attending his pre-practice presser. “Call me Skip, I actually kind of like that.”
It’s a blank slate in tone and personnel in many ways for the Bruins. Minutes in front of the microphone, Skipper announced a mutual separation between UCLA and defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe, a coach who, if not for tight ends coach Jerry Neuheisel, was the longest-tenured member remaining on the Bruins’ coaching staff (no other coaches have departed the staff).
The 47-year-old Skipper, who has coached at the likes of Fresno, Florida and Central Michigan, takes over the Bruins during a bye week, with a Sept. 27 kickoff at Northwestern next on the schedule. Even the players have treated the days since Sunday as an opportunity for a refresh, cleaning out the locker room so much that DiGiorgio called it “spotless.”
Skipper’s first moments as UCLA interim coach are a true get-to-know-you session. He referred to the bye week as his “training camp,” installing principles to get the program back on track before Big Ten play starts. That’s included borrowing from his experience replacing Jeff Tedford as the interim coach at Fresno State, knowing that the previous coach – no matter their status – had their pillars, but being unafraid to build your own.
“We are completely resetting,’ Skipper said. “We’re not going to dwell on the past, we’re not going to dream about the future. We’re going to worry about right now.”
Skipper knows the three losses remain on the schedule, the Bruins sitting in dead last entering conference action, but also recognizes that the slate is clean for the remaining nine games.
An upcoming Big Ten schedule, which as of Wednesday afternoon still includes quarterback Nico Iamaleava and the rest of the Bruins’ roster players accounted to play in, according to a UCLA Athletics spokesperson, with not one player publicly announcing their intentions to enter the transfer portal (in a 30-day window to do so) since Sunday.
“You might judge me on this, but it’s not a number, it’s not an amount of wins or any of that – it’s a style of play,” Skipper said when asked about how he would define success. “It’s a style of play. To me, if your style of play is right, the scoreboard takes care of itself.”
Leadership committee to meet with Jarmond
UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond will meet with the UCLA football leadership council – a group of team captains and older Bruins including the likes of kicker Mateen Bhaghani, defensive lineman Gary Smith III and tight end Hudson Habermehl – on Sundays after every game.
“[We are going to] sit down and focus on what is going on on the team and really work with Martin Jarmond and Coach Skipper and [senior associate athletic director Erin Adkins] to really cut down on the things that we need to and fix the things that we can,” DiGiorgio said.
DiGiorgio added that Foster’s firing was an emotional situation Sunday, with much of the team away from campus due to the off day before the bye week.
“My initial reaction was really just shocked, and I felt somewhat accountable as a player and as a captain of letting him down as head coach,” DiGiorgio said.
The redshirt senior offensive lineman said Foster addressed the players who were in Westwood on Sunday morning for five to 10 minutes before Jarmond spoke to the larger portion of the team later in the day.
“I feel like as a whole team, I mean, we all love Coach Foster,” said Bhaghani, who heard the news from Jarmond. “But the decision was made, and, I mean, as of now, I feel like we just have to take accountability and move forward.”
