UCLA football is ‘Under Pressure’ from high expectations for 2021 season

This post was updated Aug. 22 at 10:00 p.m.

UCLA football is “Under Pressure.” With a potential sixth straight losing season looming in 2021, there is pressure on everyone to make sure that doesn’t happen. From the coaches to the players to the UCLA Athletics administration, Daily Bruin Sports looks at who has the most riding on this season and who has a few more years until their seat is officially hot.

Chip Kelly

After three consecutive disappointing seasons, the pressure is all the way up for coach Chip Kelly.

Everyone has seen the columns, radio segments and tweets saying this is his last chance to turn the ship around, and all of that is right on the money. Kelly needs to have a good year in 2021 or it will be his last in Westwood.

The Bruins have yet to achieve a number of accomplishments so far under the fourth-year coach, including winning a nonconference game or finishing a season with at least an equal amount of wins and losses. In fact, a Kelly-coached team – whether college or professional – has yet to finish a season at or above .500 since the Philadelphia Eagles finished 10-6 in 2014.

If Kelly can’t regain a rhythm with the offense and the defense remains in shambles, it won’t only be the fourth-year coach paying the price. Most of the coaching staff – including his buddy and defensive coordinator Jerry Azzinaro – are also hinging on Kelly’s performance this season.

Dorian Thompson-Robinson

While senior quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson isn’t a UCLA employee and can’t be fired in the same way Kelly and the coaching staff can, this season will have huge implications for him not only this year but for his football future in general.

First things first, Thompson-Robinson’s job as the starting quarterback is secure if he’s healthy – that’s not up for discussion. However, Thompson-Robinson has missed time because of injuries for each of the past three seasons, and now he may actually have competition from fellow teammates breathing down his neck. What happens when Thompson-Robinson misses a few games and redshirt sophomore Chase Griffin or redshirt freshman Ethan Garbers goes on a winning streak in his place? Would Kelly give the keys back to a quarterback who has yet to lead a winning team in three seasons as the starter?

But that’s not the only pressure on Thompson-Robinson this year. If he continues on with his past play – featuring 30 turnovers and 17 losses in games he played across three seasons – it’s possible that no NFL team will give him a call in April. Thompson-Robinson has to show improvement in his decision-making and prove he is good enough to lead a winning team before he can think about a career at the next level.

The veteran players

With losing seasons every year since 2016, most of the UCLA roster has yet to see any sort of team success while in college. For most of the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-year players, this season will be their last opportunity to flip the trend.

Players like redshirt senior linebacker Shea Pitts and redshirt senior running back Ethan Fernea are holdovers from former coach Jim Mora’s age and have spent more than four years giving their time and effort to the program with little in return. Chances are there aren’t many players in the entire country who want to win more this year than these guys.

However, the pressure isn’t fully on them. Sure, they are feeling the pressure of having just one last chance of tasting the sweet feeling of a .500 record, but there’s only so much they can do.

The young players

For the players just entering the program, there is not much stressing them out on the surface.

A winning season would be nice, but it’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t happen. They still have multiple seasons ahead of them, and assuming the Bruins don’t go nine straight seasons with a losing record, it’s a fair assumption that most of these players will see a winning season at one point or another in their college careers.

However, if the Bruins were to falter this season, there would still be consequences. Since all of the young players are Kelly recruits, a new coaching staff would mean the returning players would either have to play for a coach they didn’t originally sign up for or be forced to find a new home via the transfer portal.

Martin Jarmond

Let’s make one thing clear – athletic director Martin Jarmond’s seat is nowhere near hot at the moment, and he arguably has the most secure job of anybody in Westwood. But nobody likes making difficult decisions, and a tenure-defining one could potentially be on Jarmond’s plate at the end of this year.

Should the Bruins struggle for the fourth straight season, Jarmond and his staff will have a few options. If they decide to keep Kelly going into the final year of his contract, the fan base may not react fondly, and Kelly likely wouldn’t be too happy coaching with just one year left on his deal.

If Jarmond decides to fire Kelly instead, he will face the pressure of hiring a new coach, which is a process in its own right. It seems like most college football coaching hires get fired eventually, and the odds of nailing the hire are slim, especially considering the head coaching history in Westwood.

Another One Bites the Dust?

Each of the last three UCLA football coaches – Karl Dorrell, Rick Neuheisel and Mora – bit the dust before the ends of their respective contracts.

So what would have to happen this year for Kelly to lose his job prematurely and join that club?

A disappointing season on the field would certainly kick off the process. UCLA’s defense has been the top reason why the Bruins have struggled in the past, and Kelly’s refusal to part with Azzinaro is likely a negative in the eyes of Kelly’s bosses. But Kelly was brought to Westwood to whip up creative offenses as he did at Oregon, and after offensive struggles in his first three seasons, it’s unclear how patient Jarmond would be after a fourth such campaign.

And if UCLA were to have another bad season this year, the timing would never be better for a firing to happen. The $9 million buyout in Kelly’s contract ends after year four of his five-year contract, which falls on Jan. 15. If the UCLA Athletics administrators can stay patient and wait a little more than a month after the season ends, very little would be stopping them from showing Kelly the door in January.

We are the (Pac-12) Champions?

The pressure is high for UCLA football this season for one main reason: Theoretically, this team should be very good.

An experienced coach? Check. A veteran roster? Check. A favorable schedule? Check.

So what’s stopping the Bruins from making a run for the 2021 Pac-12 title?

A lot would need to go right, but for a team that has had seemingly everything go wrong for the past few seasons, the pendulum could finally swing back the other way.

The Bruins showed signs of promise last year with Kelly’s offense ranking in the top half of the conference in many statistical categories. The addition of assistant head coach, passing game coordinator and defensive backs coach Brian Norwood also pushed a once-dormant UCLA defense into relevancy, going from No. 113 to No. 69 in total yards allowed per game from 2019 to 2020. UCLA was defeated by a combined 15-point margin in four losses last year, and if the team can build on the shortened 2020 season, a lot of those close losses can turn into wins in 2021.

The team is also chock-full of experience, with more than half the roster having more than two collegiate seasons under their belt. This includes Thompson-Robinson, who is entering his fourth year as the starter under center and is one of only four senior Pac-12 starting quarterbacks.

UCLA should start the season well, with two of its three nonconference games coming against non-Power Five opponents. From there, the Pac-12 portion of its schedule is more difficult – it faces five teams in the preseason AP Top 25 – but its toughest matchup against No. 11 Oregon is a home game, and the Bruins’ campaign last year proved they can hold their own against Pac-12 opponents.

While the pressure is on UCLA football, the ingredients are there for a successful season.