UCLA is back, swinging around the coaching carousel for the second time in three years.
Unlike the February 2023 hiring of DeShaun Foster — whom UCLA fired Sunday morning after a 0-3 start to the 2025 season — athletic director Martin Jarmond will have potentially three months, far longer than Foster’s rushed spring hire, and the run-of-the-mill hiring cycle that usually takes place in December at the end of the regular season.
During a Sunday afternoon conference call with local reporters, which the Southern California News Group attended, Jarmond laid out his criteria for the type of candidate a yet-to-be-filled committee would use to select the next UCLA head football coach, a process the sixth-year athletic director insisted he would be a part of.
“First and foremost, it’s got to be someone who exemplifies our true Bruin value — respect, integrity and just understands those four letters —but we’ll be looking for a coach, quite frankly, who sees the vision to take UCLA to the playoffs,” Jarmond said. “We want to win at the highest level.”
Jarmond said such a committee — also spearheaded by senior associate athletic director Erin Adkins — that helps identify head coach candidates will include “great Bruins,” people with “successful careers in business and sports,” and folks “close to the program.”
UCLA chancellor Julio Frenk is also expected to be involved, although in what capacity is yet to be determined or expressed publicly.
Frenk served as the University of Miami president from 2015 to 2024, installing head football coaches for the Hurricanes such as Mark Richt, Manny Diaz and Mario Cristobal, the last of whom Miami poached from UCLA’s conference rival Oregon.
“We have constant communication, and we’re in lockstep needing to have a successful football program,” Jarmond said of Frenk on Sunday. “He gets that and he understands that and I’m grateful for his support.”
UCLA (0-3) has a week off before traveling for a Big Ten Conference game at Northwestern on Sept. 27. Tim Skipper, who served as the special assistant to the head football coach, will serve as the interim head coach for the duration of the season, the school announced Sunday.
In no particular order, here are seven coaches for UCLA fans to keep an eye on as the search for the next UCLA football coach gets underway:
D’Anton Lynn, USC defensive coordinator
Lynn was once UCLA’s $1 million man, the first coordinator in school history to breach the nine digits on his contract.
Under Chip Kelly, Lynn led the Bruins’ defense to become one of the best in the Pac-12 — ranking first in rushing defense, third in sacks per game ,and helped lead UCLA to its best opponents’ yards per game rate since 1992. At USC, Lynn flipped the Trojans’ defense on their head.
The 35-year-old helped USC improve across the board — albeit not to the same highs in Westwood — after joining Lincoln Riley’s staff after Alex Grinch’s removal as defensive coordinator. But the Trojans have become much more competitive defensively and sit ranked No. 25 in the Week 4 AP Poll.
If Bruin fans can get over Lynn’s switch from UCLA to USC, then potentially the hiring committee can as well.
Jonathan Smith, Michigan State head coach
The longtime Oregon State coach, who moved to East Lansing, Michigan, to coach the Spartans a year ago, was born in Pasadena and played football at Glendora High School. Although his first year at Michigan State did not go as planned, finishing 5-7 on par with UCLA, Smith built Oregon State into a Pac-12 contender across his six seasons with the Beavers. In 2023, Smith’s Beavers dismantled a Chip Kelly-led Bruins 36-24 in Corvallis.
Smith, whose buyout would have been at around $7 million should the terms of his original contract have still been intact, is now about $3 million, according to the Detroit Free Press, after a contract stipulation about athletic director turnover cut the buyout by 50%.
Will Stein, Oregon offensive coordinator
Very much in the mold of Oregon hiring Dan Lanning or Arizona State hiring Kenny Dillingham (who happened to be Lanning’s offensive coordinator with the Ducks), Stein represents what could be an exciting candidate for any university’s big board.
Oregon’s offense currently ranks 18th in total offense through three games this season — including a 69-3 victory over Oklahoma State in Week 2 — and is averaging 8.3 yards per play, a mark that ranks third in the nation.
Stein, 35, does raise some question marks. He would be the youngest head coach in program history since Terry Donahue at 31 years old. But with just three years of coordinator experience, he may be too similar to the mold of the Foster hire for this hiring cycle.
Tony White, Florida State defensive coordinator
Potentially the clearest shoo-in potential candidate of the bunch, White was contacted and considered at UCLA during the same cycle Foster was hired, a source with knowledge of the situation told the Southern California News Group.
White, who played football at UCLA from 1997 to 2000, started in his final three seasons as a Bruin and was a team captain in 2000. He was a graduate assistant in the football program in 2007. Since then, White has been the defensive coordinator at Arizona State, Syracuse, Nebraska, and currently at Florida State, where the Seminoles have started 2-0 which includes a 31-17 victory over Alabama.
White has not served as a head coach, but holds plenty of coordinator experience — and has the added touch of being a UCLA alumnus.
Brent Brennan, Arizona head coach
Brennan, much like White, is a former Bruin. And unlike White, he’s already been a collegiate head coach.
Brennan played at UCLA for five seasons, graduating in 1997 before beginning his coaching career at the high school ranks. He became the San Jose State coach in 2017 — tallying a 34-48 record across seven seasons as Spartans coach —and helped the school win its first outright conference title in 2020 with a 7-1 record.
Although the start to his Arizona coaching career hasn’t set the world on fire, finishing 4-8 (2-7 in Big 12 play), Brennan would have likely received a call should UCLA have been in this position when the Bruins were still in the Pac-12. And very well may earn a call depending on how his second season with the Wildcats goes in 2025.
Clark Lea, Vanderbilt head coach
Lea began his coaching career as a graduate assistant under Karl Dorrell in 2007 at UCLA. Then, he returned to Westwood under Rick Neuheisel as a graduate assistant again before serving as linebackers coach from 2010 to 2011.
Vanderbilt and UCLA do share some commonalities. They’re both known for academic prowess and have had substantial success in Olympic sports. Lea has shown he can flip the notion that the Commodores struggle to compete in football on its head — turning around a 9-27 start across his first three seasons into a 10-6 run since then.
It may be difficult to pull Lea away from Vanderbilt, where he played college football, and his recently signed extension (after the 2023 season), but his UCLA roots could have sway should he get a call from the hiring committee.
Brennan Marion, Sacramento State head coach
Marion is somewhat of a rising star in the college football coaching world.
He helped turn UNLV into a Mountain West contender after two years as the offensive coordinator under Barry Odom for the Rebels — including a 2024 squad that ranked 14th in the nation with 36.2 points per game.
Albeit unlikely for this cycle, Marion possesses traits that could one day see him become a Power 4 head coach, if not an offensive coordinator, should he decide to leave Sacramento.
Other potential names to watch: Washington head coach Jedd Fisch, Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck, Georgia defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann, and UNLV head coach Dan Mullen.
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