Let it go if you’ve never heard of some of Bob Chesney’s previous coaching stops.
Dispense with the number of Roman numerals after their NCAA divisions.
Don’t get riled up if the nicknames of those teams — Greyhounds, Crusaders, Dukes — fail to resonate like Fighting Irish, Buckeyes or Wolverines.
What matters are the core beliefs that have sparked the new UCLA football coach’s rise from the netherworld of college football to the big time of the Big Ten.
They’ve followed him to Westwood, fortifying him for a shot at the next big success.
“I think Coach Ches, in terms of setting the culture, he’s the best in the business,” offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy said Thursday after the team’s fourth spring practice.
Kennedy knows his boss’ philosophies as well as his own playbook, having followed Chesney from Holy Cross to James Madison to UCLA.
Asked to bullet-point those beliefs, Kennedy listed a positive attitude, a sense of urgency and an acute attention to detail. One mantra is that how you do one thing is how you do everything, the point being that poor students aren’t likely to be great football players.
“The way he says it is,” Kennedy said, “you look at all the successful people in the world and they all kind of carry those traits.”
Another piece of Chesney’s success is consistency.
Defensive coordinator Colin Hitschler, who first worked with Chesney at Salve Regina in 2011, said he’s the same guy he was back when he was coaching at the NCAA Division III level.
“That’s the mentality that he’s brought even here which is, like, no job is too small and you do whatever it takes to be successful,” Hitschler said. “That’s probably the biggest thing.”
What has allowed Chesney to thrive everywhere he’s been?
“It’s his enthusiasm, his excitement for the game, his energy that he brings daily,” Hitschler said. “It’s unique, it’s special and it rubs off on the staff, and then the staff brings it to the players and together it’s just a lot of fun out here. I think everyone that’s around feels it, and I think eventually that’s gonna lead to wins.”
Quickly spreading those philosophies are the 10 James Madison transfers who accompanied Chesney and his assistants across the country.
“Their belief within the system is probably the biggest thing, right?” Hitschler said. “Anytime you start at a new place, you have to install a scheme but you have to install a belief, and when you bring kids that have lived through it and a success of the program, they can bring others with them.
“They can say, ‘No, this works, like, we gotta do this.’ It’s gone a long way to have that leadership in the room, but there’s a lot of great kids, a lot of great leaders here.”
Another benefit of having so many James Madison players is their knowledge of the offense and defense. Kennedy noted wide receiver Landon Ellis correcting a teammate who had gone to the wrong side of the field after breaking the huddle.
“They’re not just concerned with themselves,” Kennedy said of the James Madison transfers, “they’re pouring it into other people on the team, which is only going to curb the learning curve and make it a bit faster.”
Practice standouts
After catching a pass over the middle from quarterback Nico Iamaleava, Ellis absorbed a crunching hit from a defender but kept on going.
On a good day for the running backs, Anthony Woods showed some significant burst on a long run up the middle.
Safety Logan Hirou intercepted a pass, continuing a strong early spring showing for the freshman from Orange County.
“Any freshman that can show up and make plays,” Hitschler said, “that’s a confidence and ability to learn and process and just play fast and free. It’s the surfer mentality, I guess, but he’s a lot of fun to be around.”