Bob Chesney wasted no time bringing familiar faces to the West Coast. First, it was offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy, who spent two seasons with the now-UCLA head coach at Holy Cross and the past two years at James Madison, where he led the 11th-highest scoring offense in the FBS. [Related: Five Things: Analyzing coaching shakeups, roster changes and key returnees for UCLA football] Then came defensive coordinator Colin Hitschler, a product of Luke Fickell – his mentor at Cincinnati and Wisconsin – who spent 2025 in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and the year prior at Alabama as the co-defensive coordinator. In 2025, the Dukes’ defense ranked fifth in the FBS in yards allowed...
