Water spray, chaos and stress tests: Inside Bob Chesney’s UCLA practice philosophy
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- UCLA coach Bob Chesney simulates real game conditions during practice, using TV timeouts for coaches to share strategy with players and maintain competitive pressure.
- Competition permeates every aspect of Chesney’s program, from the weight room to locker organization, with every element graded and held to high standards.
- Players undergo stress tests during practice so the coaching staff can identify weaknesses before the season starts.
UCLA football practices simulate as many aspects of a game as possible, including TV timeouts. In a Bob Chesney practice, those simulated breaks become a chance for coaches to share information with the players.
“Instead of just taking a break ... the coaches get together and then they break up and disseminate that information to the players, and then they come back together again and then we go out and play,” Chesney said during spring practice on Tuesday.
Chesney is entering his first season at UCLA football aiming for the Bruins to adapt, overcome and perform. These goals are often utilized in rest periods. They’re spread throughout practice to break the monotonous nature of it.
UCLA coach Bob Chesney led the Bruins through his first spring football workouts on Thursday, bringing his John Wooden and Ted Lasso style life lessons.
“I want the coaches to talk about the new plays they’re seeing from the offense and the new things they’re seeing from the defense,” he said. “I want them to practice coaching in-game, and they themselves want to practice coaching in-game.”
The coaching staff tries to slow things down for players. They don’t want players to rush through learning the playbook, and there’s no concrete deadline for installing plays into practice, offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy said.
“It’s fluid,” he told reporters last week.
In previous seasons at James Madison University, Kennedy and Chesney noticed there were times when too much emphasis was placed on learning plays early in spring practice, leading to execution mistakes once the season began. It convinced them to put a hold on finalizing certain plays so players and coaches had more time to process details and make adjustments.
“There’s a million football plays, but if you just install stuff and you don’t actually get a rep of it, what’s the point, right? You can’t assess it on film,” Kennedy said. “You can’t teach it to them the proper way because realistically, just like us, there’s only so much they can learn, right?”
Competition is at the heart of Chesney’s efforts to revitalize the Bruins. From the weight room to sitting in meetings, to the way the lockers are kept — everything is a competition, Chesney said.
“Every single thing is going to be graded and judged and held to a high standard, and accountability will follow it,” he said. “That has got to be it, we have to be able to compete. We play a game where you keep score and everybody’s in a one-on-one matchup and [compete] as hard as possible for 80, 90, however many plays it might be in a game.”
For UCLA, it’s important to set a level of competition that mimics game-time energy during practice.
“I want Saturdays to feel as much like a Tuesday and Wednesday as humanly possible,” Chesney said.
That includes the pressure of trying to filter out thousands of screaming fans. In punt return drills involving receiver Mikey Matthews, UCLA players rushed him, screamed at him and sprayed him with water in an attempt to prevent him from catching the ball.
After UCLA coach Mick Cronin failed to figure out how to feature center Aday Mara, he transferred to Michigan and won a national championship.
Chesney doesn’t want to wait until the season starts to see if his players crack under pressure.
“I’d rather find out right now in practice three and just continue to elevate it week in and week out,” he said. “I think that’s probably the focal point of this entire program is that you pay attention to no virtue that has not been tested in fire, and I want to make sure that we test everything that we can out here in fire.”
Although his practice philosophy is aimed at maximizing effort from players on the roster, Chesney hopes it also provides valuable insight for the recruits who watch UCLA’s practices.
“There’s a lot of glitz and glamour and flash and sizzle in this recruiting process,” Chesney said, “but in the end, you’re actually going to be a football player standing on the field at 9 o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday, and does this fit the style of football that you want to play? That’s ultimately the question.”
Injury update: Outside linebacker Ryan McCulloch, who transferred from California, could see some practice time near the “very end” of the spring practice period, Chesney said. McCulloch missed most of the 2025 season because of an undisclosed injury.
