The UCLA Bruins Football Coaching Change Talent Drain

Yesterday, I looked at the Recruiting History of UCLA Football Since 2000.

That brings us to the current state of the UCLA roster and, specifically, to how the level of talent currently on the roster has been drained since Jim Mora was fired.

Let’s start this look with the 2014 recruiting class.

This recruiting class has just one player left on the current roster and that’s safety Adarius Pickett. There were three guys who opted to enter the NFL draft last season: Kolton Miller, Austin Roberts, and Jordan Lasley. Miller was a first-round draft pick. So, you can’t really argue that he should have stayed. Austin Roberts blew out his ACL during training camp, making it hard to say whether he should have stuck around for another year at UCLA. Lasley remains on the roster for the Baltimore Ravens, despite not having done anything to help the team so far this season. He probably would have found himself better off staying in school for another year, but it’s hard to argue that with the offense playing as badly as it has.

There are three other players no longer on the roster who could have been. They are Ainuu Taua, who transferred to Nevada as a grad transfer; Denzel Fisher, who announced a grad transfer to West Virginia, but wasn’t accepted; and, Nate Starks, who was injured last season and could have requested an injury redshirt with no guarantee that would happen.

Overall, that leaves just one of a possible four blue chip recruits on the current roster.

Let’s look at the 2015 recruiting class.

This is the recruiting class that could have been great. Unfortunately, four of the thirteen blue chip recruits from this class washed out while Jim Mora was still coach. Those four are Chris Clark, who wore the blue and gold for just one game before leaving the team; Fred Ulu-Perry, who transferred to Hawai’i after the 2015 season; Cordell Broadus, who quit the team twice; and Tevita Halilo, who broke his ankle in 2015 and was not on the 2016 roster.

There are only two other blue chip recruits no longer on the roster. That’s Josh Rosen, who opted for the NFL Draft after last season, and DeChaun Holiday, who left the program in Spring 2018.

Believe it or not, the rest of the blue chip recruits from this class are still on the roster as either true seniors or redshirt juniors. Of course, Josh Woods is out for the season after suffering an knee injury during camp, but the other blue chip recruits are still around.

To date, four of the blue chip recruits from this class have basically underperformed. Those guys are Soso Jamabo, Josh Wariboko-Alali, Stephen Johnson and Colin Samuel.

The 2016 recruiting class had eleven blue chip recruits.

This class is currently comprised of true juniors and redshirt sophomores. At this point, it’s lost four of its eleven blue chip recruits. Devon Modster is the most recent member of this class to leave the program, but Brandon Burton and Damian Alloway both left prior to the start of training camp. The other blue chip recruit from this class who is no longer a part of the program is Breland Brandt, who took a medical retirement.

Moving on, here’s the roster for the 2017 UCLA recruiting class.

This class has lost three of its blue chip recruits. Jimmy Jaggers took a medical retirement in June while Greg Rogers and Stephan Zabie both left the program in the Spring.

Even the 2018 class has lost a blue chip recruit. Bryan Addison, who signed with UCLA in February, never made it to campus due to a situation with the UCLA Admissions office.

All told, UCLA has lost 13 blue chip recruits who could have been on the roster this season . That amounts to almost 32% of UCLA’s blue chip recruits who still had college eligibility for this season. Think about that for a moment.

Don’t forget that that’s just the blue chip recruits — guys who were rated as 5-star or 4-star recruits coming out of high school. That isn’t factoring in any 3-star or lower recruits who have left the program since the end of last season.

I haven’t looked at other programs to see what kind of blue chip turnover they had when they replaced their head coach, nor have I looked at what kind of turnover other UCLA head coaches had when they took over the program. But, to me, the simple fact that about a third of UCLA’s highest rated players coming out of high school that could still be with the program are no longer in Westwood appears to be huge.

I don’t know if the turnover is due to players not wanting to get with Chip Kelly’s program or Chip Kelly and staff deciding that certain players don’t fit into their view of the program or anything else. Of course, that number factors in things like medical retirements and players leaving for the NFL which may not be related to either.

But, just in terms of numbers, it’s not a recipe for winning football and certainly helps explain why so many younger guys are playing as well as why the team has not looked as good or as talented as many of us believe the team to be.


Go Bruins.

[UPDATE] 9/25/18 4:56 pm: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that Chip Kelly announced this morning that center Zach Sweeney has chosen to opt for a medical retirement. This does not affect the blue chip talent on the team because Sweeney was a three-star recruit. It does, however, make an already-thin offensive line even thinner.