Bob Chesney, current coach at James Madison, is expected to sign a 5-year deal with the Bruins, according to ESPN sources. That's expected to happen after James Madison's league championship game.
This comes after UCLA fired DeShaun Foster back in September after starting the season with three losses.
The Bruins lost to USC over the weekend.
Chesney's James Madison team is 11-1 this season and plays Troy this week in the Sun Belt championship game. UCLA has agreed with James Madison that Chesney will coach the Dukes if JMU wins the Sun Belt and ends up in the College Football Playoff field as one of five highest-ranked conference champions.
Chesney informed his team of his intention to leave Tuesday, sources told ESPN. Chesney jumped to the top of the list of candidates in this frenetic college coaching cycle, drawing interest for a number of the top openings, as JMU is ranked No. 19 in both the Associated Press and AFCA Coaches polls.
Once finalized, UCLA gets a coach with a consistent track record of winning, as athletic director Martin Jarmond and the UCLA search committee quickly coalesced around his candidacy early in the process.
Chesney, a Pennsylvania native, brings a background as an assistant coach on both defense and special teams. He has also developed a reputation as a turnaround artist, as he has resuscitated struggling programs at Division III Salve Regina, Division II Assumption University and turned FCS Holy Cross into a high-level winner. Along with being 20-4 at JMU, he's 131-51 overall as a college head coach over 16 seasons. At Holy Cross, he led the school to four of the six FCS Playoff appearances in school history, reaching four in a row from 2019-22. He led them to five Patriot League titles.
The UCLA search committed included notable graduates like longtime NBA executive Bob Myers and Commanders GM Adam Peters.
UCLA pitched to candidates a job with increased financial support, as well as the financial ambition to be competitive in the Big Ten and embrace the academic standards of UCLA. Chesney has worked at strong academic schools, including as an assistant at Johns Hopkins prior to becoming a head coach.
"He had an appreciation for UCLA, the academics and the Big Ten," said a source familiar with the process. "He also had a detailed plan on how to turn the program around."
ESPN contributed to this report.