Swanson: Bob Chesney's gutty Bruins pushed to beat Cal and gave UCLA fans a reason believe
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The competency alone had to make UCLA football fans want to cry.
To say nothing of their team’s resolve.
Or the multitude of explosive plays. Big plays. Timely plays.
The six rushing touchdowns! Two fewer than the Bruins had all last season.
UCLA applied pressure! UCLA provided protection! UCLA played with pace, with tempo.
UCLA played well.
It had been too long.
With a 45-24 win over an old Pac-12 Conference rival, the Bob Chesney era bolstered the Bruins’ belief in the future. Yes, it’s only one game, but as first impressions go, this was impressive.
The schedulers saved Week 1’s best matchup for last, giving the nation a late-night peek at two programs with new coaches promising hope and change.
It wasn’t so much who wanted to win more; it was who most needed to. And it felt like that was the Bruins.
A sellout crowd of 54,283 at Memorial Stadium watched them dig in and find enough answers against coach Tosh Lupoi’s Golden Bears.
“That was a battle,” Chesney said. “… a dogfight.”
And, “a lot of fun.”
Chesney was hired in December from James Madison, which he led to a 12-1 record this season and the program’s first berth in the College Football Playoff. His assignment at UCLA: Rescue a struggling football program that went 3-9 last season and is 6-12 overall in its first two seasons in the Big Ten.
There are true unknowns when a coach makes his Power Four conference coaching debut, as was Chesney after having success at lower division programs like Salve Regina and Assumption, and then FCS school Holy Cross and the Sun Belt Conference’s James Madison.
Chesney answered those questions Saturday. His Bruins came out swinging, and when Cal tied the game 24-24 after a monster drive in the third quarter, they didn’t panic.
They made plays. Senior running back Wayne Knight, the Bruins’ 5-foot-7 dynamo, ran for two fourth-quarter touchdowns. Both of his scores were set up by interceptions off Cal’s star quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele by Bruins defensive back Ta’Shawn James, the senior came entered the game with no previous interceptions.
And Chesney improved to 13-4 in season openers as a head coach, now having won seven consecutive.
Read more:Swanson: Nico Iamaleava was labeled selfish. Now the loyal UCLA QB is poised for a Heisman run
But there are also the other known unknowns with any season opener. First-game jitters. Mental miscues. Penalties — 12 of them by the Bruins for 110 yards Saturday.
“We just got into some uncharacteristic — I can’t say uncharacteristic because it’s game one with this team, right? — but some penalties that you don’t want to see ever, and they ended up stalling out drives,” Chesney said. “… A ton of things that have got to get cleaned up.”
Seeing how they tidied up after themselves in real time Saturday, you probably believe — to use Chesney’s word — they can get it done.
More remarkable is that it wasn’t only Chesney’s debut, but the 37 players’ too.
“What’s surprising about it is it doesn’t feel like it’s the first game [together,]” Chesney said. “I just said that to them … ‘It feels like we’ve been playing football here for a long time.’ And I just think, you know, to watch the joy on their faces at the end of it, and the belief that they have in it.
“You’ve got to believe it before you see it, just the way that it’s got to work. And they did just that.”
That included Knight, one of 10 JMU transfers to follow Chesney to Westwood. And James, a transfer from Iowa State who said he’s thrilled to be playing for Chesney now.
“Man, I just wish you could have been on the visit with me,” he said. “My official visit when I came here, and then y’all would truly understand the energy and the vibes, the conversations you have with the coaching staff.
“I came in here with the JMU players, and it just was like, ‘They’re just great people, great people to be around.’ And it’s just like, makes everything easier to come in the building every single day and want to go to work and play with those individuals.”
It won’t be easy, of course.
The Big Ten is not the Sun Belt Conference.
And L.A. is not Harrisonburg, Va.
But the Bruins are Bob Chesney’s team now. And that’s exciting.
“We have a lot of potential, man,” said quarterback Nico Iamaleava, who rushed for one touchdown and threw for 184 yards and one interception.
“Sky’s the limit, I think. As long as we continue to buy into what Coach Ches says, sky’s the limit.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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