The gauntlet is almost over.
Arizona is about to face its fourth ranked opponent in a span of five games. UCLA is No. 9 in the AP poll, No. 12 in the College Football Playoff rankings.
Washington wasn’t ranked when it hosted Arizona on Oct. 15, but the Huskies are now, checking in at 24/25. The cumulative record of those five teams entering this week: 38-7.
UA coach Jedd Fisch has expressed his admiration, respect and even envy for all five. But they didn’t all get to where they are the same way.
The first three opponents — Oregon, Washington and USC — have first-year coaches. All three programs have recruited at a higher level than Arizona, though, so those coaches weren’t walking into rebuilding situations.
Utah is the steadiest team in the league. Kyle Whittingham has been the Utes’ coach forever. They have a specific system, and they don’t veer from it.
Fisch has said several times that he’d like his program to mirror Whittingham’s. But it’s difficult to compare the two. Utah hasn’t had a losing record since 2013.
Which brings us to the Bruins. Chip Kelly — who technically succeeded Fisch in Westwood — has laid the template. Kelly is in his fifth season, and UCLA has gotten better every year. The Bruins’ winning percentage has gone up each season, from .250 in 2018 to .889 this year.
“For the most part, if you look at what he’s done, it’s exactly what we hope to do,” Fisch said.
The situation Kelly inherited wasn’t exactly the same as Arizona’s.
UCLA fired Jim Mora after a loss to USC dropped the Bruins to 5-6 with a week left in the 2017 season. Fisch took over as interim coach and led UCLA to a season-ending win over Cal to secure the Bruins’ fifth bowl berth in six years of what would be considered the Mora era.
That was precisely what the Wildcats did during the same timeframe under Rich Rodriguez. Mora and Rodriguez were hired and fired during the same cycles. UCLA then hired Kelly. Arizona hired Kevin Sumlin.
Whereas the Bruins initially dipped before gradually improving under Kelly, the Wildcats kept getting worse under Sumlin. They bottomed out at 0-5 in 2020.
So, in essence, Kelly had a head start. He inherited a team that had gone 6-7 the previous year. Fisch took over a program that was riding a 12-game losing streak.
Staying the course
Kelly didn’t succeed right away. The Bruins’ build required patience.
They went 3-9 in Kelly’s first season, then 4-8, then 3-4 during the COVID-19 year. UCLA went 1-2 vs. rival USC during that span.
On Oct. 31 of last year, with the Bruins sitting at 5-4, the Los Angeles Times’ UCLA beat reporter, Ben Bolch, wrote a piece suggesting that Kelly should be fired.
The headline read: “Chip Kelly is nowhere close to elite, and UCLA can do much better.”
The piece included the following passage:
“Forty games into the most expensive experiment in UCLA football history, the evidence is incontrovertible. Kelly is guilty of fleecing the Bruins for $16.7 million since his arrival. You don’t need a degree from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management to know that this is not an acceptable return on investment.
“The Bruins are eating lavishly, they are getting enough sleep and they are staying hydrated. That’s all great and admirable. They are not winning nearly enough games to justify another season of this madness.
“UCLA’s 44-24 loss to Utah on Saturday night at Rice-Eccles Stadium was the latest referendum on Kelly’s failures.”
Since then, the Bruins have gone 11-1, including a 29-point win over the Trojans. Getting to that point required a leap of faith from Martin Jarmond, who became UCLA’s athletic director in 2020. It helped that Kelly had a track record.
“Chip made a determination on how he wanted to run his program,” Fisch said. “It’s the ability to say, ‘We’re going to build a program a special way with the players that we want to build it with, with the guys that are willing to commit to books and ball and take that very serious.’
“And he stayed with it. He stayed the course. He never deviated, and you can see how that’s paid huge dividends for UCLA football.”
Arizona coach Jedd Fisch, left, talks with UCLA coach Chip Kelly during last year’s game in Tucson.
Similarities, differences
Johnny Nansen was there when it turned. He could see it. He could feel it.
Nansen, Arizona’s defensive coordinator, joined Kelly’s staff in March 2020. Although he comes across as grumpy in media settings, Kelly set a tone of positivity at UCLA that’s carried through losing seasons, the COVID year and the current prosperity.
“It’s very similar to what we’re doing here,” Nansen said. “The message to the kids (is) to believe, to keep coming in with the right attitude, being positive in the building.”
Nansen knows what the UA players are experiencing. They’re still at the beginning stages of the rebuild. The lows still outnumber the highs.
UCLA’s roster endured similar growing pains.
“They went through some ups and downs,” Nansen said. “To see where their program is at now, we’re hoping that’s going to be us the next couple of years.”
The blueprints aren’t a perfect match.
Kelly has had the same starting quarterback, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, all five years; Fisch brought in Jayden de Laura via the transfer portal.
Overall, Kelly has relied much more on the portal than Fisch has. UCLA’s 2022 high school class featured only 11 players; Arizona had 23. The Bruins currently have nine commits for 2023; the Wildcats have 19.
But in terms of trajectory, they’re in sync. Arizona went 1-11 in Fisch’s first season. At worst, the 2022 Wildcats will finish 3-9. At best, they’ll be 6-6. Most likely, they’ll land somewhere in between.
Fisch is confident they’ll keeping getting better — just as Kelly’s Bruins have.
“Hats off to that build over there those last five years,” Fisch said. “That’s our goal — to get to a place where we can do the same.”
