UCLA Names Pacific’s Ryan Jorden as Bruins’ New Men’s Soccer Coach

Yesterday, UCLA filled its second coaching opening when the Bruins named Ryan Jorden as the new men’s soccer coach. Jorden comes to Westwood from Pacific where he compiled a 38-13-6 record over the past three seasons.

He replaces former coach Jorge Salcedo, who was indicted on racketeering charges and resigned.

Jorden spent a total of five seasons at Pacific. He was hired in 2013 and spent a year re-establishing the men’s soccer program after a 28-year absence before he ever coached a game. After struggling through the first two seasons of the new program, Jorden’s teams have made the NCAA Tournament in each of the past three seasons.

In fact, under Jorden’s guidance, the Tigers went deeper in the 2018 NCAA Tournament than UCLA did. The Bruins lost to Portland, 1-0, in the first round while Pacific won their first round game against UC Riverside, 1-0, before losing to Duke in the second round.

Prior to restarting the program at Pacific, Jorden was the head coach at Cal Baptist where he was 60-30-10 in five seasons. In his final three seasons at Cal Baptist, Jorden’s teams went 48-15-3. Jorden won the NCCAA National Championship in both of his final two years at Cal Baptist.

In UCLA’s announcement of Jorden’s hiring, Dan Guerrero said:

Ryan Jorden’s time has come. I am very excited to welcome our tremendously innovative and well-respected new head men’s soccer coach to UCLA. At every stop in his tenure as head coach, Ryan has successfully built programs that achieved at impressive levels. He brings with him to Westwood the knowledge of what it takes to establish a consistent, winning culture and a great respect for the UCLA soccer brand, combined with a very high level of technical sports science knowledge. I look forward to seeing his vision for UCLA Men’s Soccer come to life.

The same announcement also quotes Jorden:

It is an incredible honor to be named men’s soccer coach at UCLA. I am specifically grateful to Dan Guerrero and Gavin Crew for granting me the opportunity to guide the Bruin program. I am truly passionate about the student-athlete experience and look forward to bringing this commitment to UCLA. The tradition and history of success at UCLA is unparalleled, and I am thrilled to get started in Westwood.

Jorden appears to be an up-and-coming coach who has proven he can win at multiple levels. While it took him until his third season at both Cal Baptist and Pacific for his teams to show significant improvement, Bruin fans shouldn’t need to wait that long as Jorden is taking over a talented team, but his challenge in Westwood will be to take that talented team which many have argued has been underperforming and make the most of the players’ capabilities.

Considering his history of building programs at Cal Baptist and Pacific, that seems like a task that Jorden should be prepared to do.

Welcome to Westwood, Ryan!


Go Bruins!!!