UCLA prepares for ranked matchup with Oregon after bye week
Alex Hutton
Host · Writer
During a UCLA football team meeting on Sunday, head coach Bob Chesney showed his players the Bruins’ No. 21 ranking in the Associated Press (AP) poll and followed it up with a simple message.
“If you pay attention to this number, it will go away,” he said. “If you pay attention to what you did to get that number, and only focus on that, and improve that, maybe the number even gets better.”
The Bruins are ranked for the first time since November 2023, but now they prepare for their toughest test of the season so far with a road game against No. 13 Oregon. Both teams are coming off a bye ahead of what will be UCLA’s first ranked opponent of the season.
“We’re four weeks into this, and I think that that bye week was, I’m sure, needed physically, but nobody wanted time off,” Chesney said. “Everybody wants to keep going and [is] excited for their improvements and what they can do next week.”
Chesney stated that he and the rest of the team used the bye week to focus on cleaning up their weak spots and fixing tendencies that he feels Oregon might be able to exploit — something he is already familiar with from his time at James Madison (JMU). In the Dukes’ trip to Eugene for the 2025-26 College Football Playoff, they fell behind 34-6 and eventually lost 51-34.
“They understood it was going to take a little more,” Chesney recalled. “It was going to have to be a really uncommon effort that was going to have to be on display for us to win that game. And obviously, we came up short, so it wasn’t enough. And what can we take away from that? We can take away that there are no weaknesses in this team, and if you leave them something to expose, they will expose it.”
That game gave Chesney and others a sense of Oregon’s schemes under head coach Dan Lanning, as well as the environment at Autzen Stadium. Chesney brought a significant number of coaches and players from that JMU team to UCLA, and hopes to combine their experience at Oregon with the rest of the Bruins to change the result.
“You could say it’s a rematch, but it’s a new year and it’s a new team as well,” senior defensive back and JMU transfer Derrick Barksdale said. “So we’re just going into the game like it’s another stepping stone, a next step to get better. We’re gonna attack it the same way, like we’ve been doing the last four games.”
Chesney discussed two specific position groups at length — defensive line and quarterback. In the case of the former, he noted their focus on game-planning prior to any execution.
“They have a plan on double teams,” he said. “They have a plan in the run game, single blocks. They have a plan in the pass game. They have counter moves to their plan. There’s nothing in here that’s not well thought out and executed in a disciplined and violent manner.”
“[We’re] breaking down all their pass reps, all their run reps, just trying to get a really good feel for them,” fifth-year offensive lineman Hall Schmidt added. “So I think I’m doing a great job of just watching, keying in on certain things, techniques, and really focusing on myself as well. Just knowing what I got to work on and knowing that everyone on the o-line has a job that we need to get better at every week.”
As for Oregon’s quarterbacks, it is still undetermined as to whether Dylan Raiola or former UCLA quarterback Dante Moore will start on Saturday. Moore was injured in the second quarter of Oregon’s game against USC on Sep. 26, with Raiola replacing him and leading the Ducks to a win.
Chesney and Barksdale praised both players, but noted a focus on their own play and making internal improvements rather than worrying too much about their opponent.
“They got their different strengths and weaknesses, but I feel like our defense is going to run our game plan,” Barksdale said. “At the end of the day, we’re going to get after them, and we’re going to play our man. You see [it] on the field in recent games. So I feel like we’re not going to change our game plan too much, but we’re definitely going to adjust some things.”
UCLA has shown considerable improvement under Chesney, and they’ll face their biggest test yet on Saturday. In turn, a win would be their biggest sign yet of their turnaround.
“We got to play the game that we’re playing this weekend, and the preparation going into it matters a whole lot,” Chesney said. “Our guys will be focused on that process. They’ll understand that process. What would it mean? I don’t know. It’ll mean that we’re continuing on the path that we felt like we could be on.”
