After months of hard work and preparation, Bob Chesney and the UCLA Bruins are seeing the fruits of their labor. UCLA outlasted Oregon 17-15 on Saturday, in a game that consisted of 10 total turnovers and just three touchdowns.
There was nothing easy about the win, or anything easy about turning around the UCLA football program. Somehow Chesney has made it all look quite easy, immediately turning the Bruins into Big Ten Conference contenders.
Chesney knows how this looks, like he’s the second coming of Curt Cignetti and that the only coach better than him is whoever the next James Madison coach that makes the leap to the Big Ten.
The first-year head coach has made this rebuild look mundane, flipping the switch from a laughingstock to a contender.
Chesney began his postgame media availability by looking around and asking the crowd of reporters “What do you guys want to talk about?”
We want to talk about you. We want to talk about how this is possible. We want to talk about UCLA football. A stark contrast from the woeful UCLA team that the Bruins fielded just last season.
“Disappointed in the first half to be honest with you. Just really disappointed with how many opportunities we left out there,” Chesney said, still looking for his improvement from his team. “We just played physical, we played tough. I thought our front did a good job, I thought our coverage did a good job.”
We can’t talk about the individual details from UCLA’s win but it’s just hard to wrap our heads around the rapid improvement for the Bruins under Chesney, and of course, he knows it too.
“It’s different this time,” Chesney said. “This isn’t the normal UCLA.”
This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: Bob Chesney speaks following UCLA's 17-15 victory over Oregon
