The UCLA coaching carousel is spinning again, but this time, the ride feels more like a haunted house than a golden LA ticket. Bruin Nation thought DeShaun Foster, the hometown hero, could fix the mess. Instead, he barely made it out of September, booted after starting 0–3 with losses to Utah, UNLV, and New Mexico—by a combined score of 108–43. The program that once bragged about its LA shine now looks more like an open trap. With UCLA about to spend $13.5 million in the new revenue-sharing era, the school needs more than a rah-rah guy. They need a roster surgeon and a chess master who can out-scheme the giants in their own league. And yet, two familiar names — Baylor’s Dave Aranda and BYU’s Kalani Sitake — are already being floated. That’s where the story gets ugly.

ESPN’s Bruce Feldman has Baylor’s Dave Aranda and BYU’s Kalani Sitake at the top of the board. On the surface, both sound like home-run options. Dig a little deeper, and you start to wonder if either should even pick up the phone.

Aranda’s got SoCal blood—born and raised a UCLA fan, and he knows the culture inside out. Smart, almost professor-like, he turned Baylor into a Big 12 power with a 12–2 season in 2021. Since then, it’s been a roller coaster: 33–31 overall, enough wins to stay employed, enough losses to stay on edge. At UCLA, resources come with a giant asterisk.

Then there’s Sitake. If toughness had a brand, it’d look like his BYU squads. He’s 11–2 last season, and already 3–0 this year. Players swear by him, and his West Coast ties make him a natural fit. Sitake doesn’t flinch, doesn’t fold, and his Cougars always punch above their weight. For UCLA, that’s gold. But for Sitake? Why trade stability in Provo for the chaos of LA traffic, a half-empty Rose Bowl, and NIL infrastructure that’s going to haunt you?

That’s the exact argument national voices started hollering this week. On September 17, Colin Cowherd and Josh Pate lit up the “don’t touch UCLA” siren. Cowherd didn’t mince words: “I don’t think UCLA is a good job. I think it’s one of those where it sounds like it should be good. You’re like, ‘Oh, there’s a lot of money in Bear,’ but it’s an international university. NIL punishes college football programs.” He pointed to USC dropping millions to buy a defense while UCLA fumbles to keep pace.

Cowherd then cut UCLA open, piece by piece—from lagging behind USC’s $16–18 million NIL muscle to the insane commutes coaches make just to get to campus. “It’s not even attractive to coordinators,” he added, and he wouldn’t send his best coaching clients near it, and also spilled that UCLA is not even in the top 30 college jobs in the States.

Josh Pate? He doubled down harder: “I would go further. I don’t think it’s top 45,” he said. That’s right, he put multiple G5 jobs ahead of UCLA. To Pate, the Bruins aren’t just bottom-half of the Big Ten — they’re bottom-tier nationally: “You’re asking me to take a bottom-half job, be a distant second in my own town, and second on my own campus. NIL is discombobulated. Compete with Oregon, Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan? I don’t have much good to say about it.” He even went as far as saying that in this era, plenty of coordinators wouldn’t even leave current gigs for UCLA. That’s brutal honesty.

And they’re not wrong. UCLA hasn’t been a football power in decades. Chip Kelly tapped out because he knew he couldn’t win there. Foster barely lasted a year. Even coordinators are reportedly turning down opportunities because they don’t want to deal with the mess. And let’s not forget the Rose Bowl—a gorgeous stadium, sure, but it’s nearly an hour away from campus, and unless USC is the opponent, it rarely fills up. The tickets were sold at just below $9 for their week 3 game against the New Mexico Lobos.

The NIL setup isn’t close to USC’s, the job security is shaky, and the competition is downright brutal. You might win seven games and still feel like you’re drowning. That’s not an easy sell to proven winners who already have solid gigs.

Bruce Feldman’s best pick for the UCLA job: D’Anton Lynn

Bruce Feldman threw a curveball into the conversation, naming USC defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn as the best option for UCLA. Yep, the guy currently fixing the Trojans’ defense could be the one to save the Bruins, hopefully.

Lynn’s résumé is clean and sharp. In 2023, his lone year as UCLA’s DC, he turned one of the Pac-12’s weakest defenses into a top-25 unit nationally. Players bought into his calm, even-keeled approach, and boosters loved his attention to detail. “He’s just got ‘it,’” a veteran coach said of Lynn. And when your “it factor” gets talked about like that in LA, people notice.

When USC scooped him up in 2024, the transformation was immediate. The Trojans went from giving up 34.4 points per game to 24.1, vaulting to No. 2 in the Big Ten in third-down defense. Through the first three games of 2025, USC’s defense is holding teams to 16.7 points per game. Sure, the schedule hasn’t been stacked yet, but results are results.

The question is whether Lynn sees UCLA as a project worth tackling. He’s got strong family ties in Los Angeles, he turned down his alma mater, Penn State, to stay in town, and he’s currently the second-highest-paid assistant in the country. But he’d be walking into a job with more potholes than PCH after a rainstorm—uncertain AD backing, fickle fans, and the constant reminder that USC is flexing right across town. Still, Feldman’s pick makes absolute sense. Lynn knows the terrain, connects with players, and has already proven he can build a defense in Westwood.