I walked into John Savage’s office May 18 of last year as the only reporter there.

Despite UCLA’s sweep of Stanford on Senior Day, the Bruins’ head coach seemingly had very little to celebrate.

In 2024, UCLA baseball was ranked No. 22 in the preseason rankings, in a campaign that would mesh the nation’s highest-ranked 2021 and 2023 recruiting classes after Savage missed the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2016 in 2023.

But facing great expectations, the Bruins went 19-33 – the coach’s worst season since 2005 – and tied for last in the Pac-12 in their final season in the conference.

Fast forward a year, and for the first time in 12 years, the coach was managing his last game of the season in Omaha, Nebraska, on Tuesday.

After the game – a 7-3 loss to No. 3 seed Arkansas – the coach fielded questions from reporters and outlets that, by and large, hadn’t looked the Bruins’ way the past two seasons, if not longer.

Yet no one asked the questions I would’ve – if only the moderator hadn’t ended the presser.

What’s the future of Jackie Robinson Stadium looking like?

Have any players expressed a desire to enter the transfer portal?

How is Savage planning to use the portal from a recruiting perspective? Will he talk players out of entering the MLB Draft? How is he feeling about the 2025 recruiting class?

And most importantly: Will Savage still be the Bruins’ head coach in 2026?

With Savage’s contract – the one he signed after winning the program’s only Men’s College World Series title in 2013 – up with the conclusion of the 2025 season, UCLA has to make up its mind on whether or not it’ll retain it’s long-time head coach.

And with Savage’s contract expiring on June 30 – with the coach set to earn a retention payment if he’s extended, according to USA Today – it’s likely a decision will come shortly.

The answer seems painfully clear to me: UCLA and Athletic Director Martin Jarmond should extend Savage for next season and beyond.

Make or break

It was a miracle that no high impact players transferred after the team’s miserable 2024 campaign.

And if the Bruins can avoid losing key players to the portal or MLB Draft, only one everyday player from 2025 – redshirt senior right fielder AJ Salgado – will depart because of exhausted NCAA eligibility.

But with UCLA’s sophomore core – including shortstop Roch Cholowsky and six other everyday position players – eligible for the 2026 MLB Draft after their junior seasons, it seems the Bruins’ window is closing, especially when you add that the Bruins’ 2024 recruiting class was ranked just 44th in the nation by Perfect Game, their 2025 recruiting class is ranked 30th and their 2026 crop currently features just three signees.

Don’t look now

UCLA’s other diamond program, softball, is already struggling to retain its young stars despite leading the nation in national titles and coming fresh of a second-straight Women’s College World Series appearance, losing Addisen Fisher and Kaitlyn Terry to Georgia and Texas Tech, respectively – two programs that have never won a WCWS.

Similarly, despite coming off their most successful season in over a decade, UCLA baseball’s players may be in search of offers from SEC or ACC programs if they feel Big Ten baseball isn’t up to par. Or they may still be attracted to high-value NIL deals even after the House settlement means every rostered baseball player could receive a scholarship and direct payment from their school – a substantial increase from the previous allotment of 11.7 scholarships per program.

A new head coach would only give UCLA’s stars one more reason to seek greener pastures. Players have time and again said they committed to UCLA to play under Savage.

Even without much recent success on the national stage between 2014 and 2024, Savage has been able to recruit elite high school talent and produce MLB Draft picks – and that ability to hook players on development isn’t worth nothing.

A tight wallet

Arguably, the most poetic turn of events would be for UCLA to poach head coach Ben Orloff from UC Irvine – just like the Bruins did with Savage and his predecessor, Gary Adams.

Savage has praised Orloff – who’s taken the Anteaters to back-to-back NCAA regional appearances, including the 2025 Los Angeles Regional – as the best young coach in the country, and both were mentored by the late Mike Gillespie.

While there’s obviously the question of whether Orloff would even leave Irvine, where he’s spent his collegiate career and has been on the coaching staff since 2016, the bigger question is if Jarmond would go for a big-name candidate if he doesn’t extend Savage.

Jarmond has typically hired unproven candidates with little to no head coaching experience – leading to mixed results.

He seemingly hit the jackpot with women’s soccer’s Margueritte Aozasa, who guided the Bruins to a national title in 2022, her first year as a collegiate head coach.

Other rookie head honcho hires by Jarmond – such as women’s golf’s Alicia Um Holmes and gymnastics’ Janelle McDonald – also led their programs to national runner-up finishes in 2024 and 2025, respectively.

Meanwhile, Martin’s biggest coaching hire has been football’s DeShaun Foster. Foster’s rookie campaign was marked by inconsistency on the field with a 5-7 record and major roster and coaching staff turnover in the offseason.

Additionally, women’s volleyball’s Alfee Reft has failed to make the 64-team NCAA tournament in either of his two seasons at the helm.

And despite leading men’s volleyball to the program’s fourth straight national title match, John Hawks’ inaugural season as the Bruins’ head honcho was seen as a down year after the recent success the team enjoyed under John Speraw, with UCLA going 22-7 in 2025 after losing just 12 total matches over the past three seasons.

It just doesn’t seem worth the risk of sacrificing the 2026 campaign on a new head coach’s adjustment period.

The Bruins could promote assistant coach/recruiting coordinator Bryant Ward, who’s been with the program since the 2016 season – satisfying Jarmond’s preference towards first-time head coaches with preexisting ties to UCLA – but it doesn’t make much sense to me.

Ward already fills a de-facto co-head coaching role with the team, manning the offense while Savage focuses on pitching. And hiring Ward would maintain continuity – something that would only be better kept by retaining Savage.

Unless Ward threatens to seek a head coaching position elsewhere, it doesn’t seem beneficial.

What he does best

Savage hasn’t been able to replicate the rotation he had in 2010 with Gerrit Cole, Rob Rasmussen and Trevor Bauer – or even the pitching cores of 2015 and 2019.

But that’s not to say the coach has lost his niche.

There’s no telling what the Bruins’ pitching would’ve looked like in recent years had they not lost Thatcher Hurd, Gage Jump and Ben Jacobs to the transfer portal or Ian Ritchie Jr., Cole Miller and Ethan Schiefelbein to the MLB Draft directly from high school.

Savage’s MO has been to turn high-leverage bullpen arms into weekend starters, and for the most part, it’s been a fruitful exercise – turning Max Rajcic, Alonzo Tredwell and Luke Jewett into sixth, second, and eighth round picks, respectively, each after spending a season or less as a starting pitcher.

And while pitching injuries remain a problem throughout baseball – and plagued the Bruins in 2022, 2023 and 2024 especially – the staff went without any major injuries in 2025.

If junior right-hander Cody Delvecchio and sophomore right-hander Luke Rodriguez weren’t academically ineligible for a majority of the 2025 campaign, the Bruins’ could’ve been more dominant.

Instead, Savage made the most of a staff that typically had just two arms who could consistently throw a mid-to-upper 90s fastball: sophomore right-hander Cal Randall and freshman right-hander Easton Hawk.

And despite a late start to 2025 due to injury, Hawk became the Bruins’ closer – allowing just one run over his final 12.1 innings pitched, accumulating seven saves and 18 strikeouts to nine hits and four walks.

In that final presser of the year, Savage even said the Bruins’ main concern is beefing up the weekend rotation – something he once made a staple of the program.

It’s not stealing if it’s legal

The most glaring critique of Savage’s coaching philosophy is his reluctance to use the transfer portal – UCLA had just four transfers on its 2025 roster.

Savage typically targets graduate student transfers – when the best college players get drafted after their junior year – and even then, it’s routinely relievers or backup catchers.

Modern powerhouse programs are built through the transfer portal.

LSU’s 2023 title-winning team was notably led by Paul Skenes and included 2023 First-Team All-American Tommy White, both transfers.

And the 2025 Arkansas squad that ended UCLA’s seasons was littered with poached talent – including Golden Spikes Award finalist shortstop Wehiwa Aloy and ace left-hander Zach Root.

But Savage’s acquisition of redshirt junior southpaw Ian May from California last year could be a sign of shifting tides.

And maybe going head-to-head with transfer-heavy SEC powers in Omaha, Nebraska, swayed the coach further.

Plus, given Savage’s long-standing ability to procure talent from the amateur ranks, that ability to persuade players should translate well to the portal once the coach embraces it.

Regardless, if completely turning around the program in a contract year to reach the Men’s College World Series – in the face of losing the team’s home field in the fall, navigating a new conference and losing the squad’s Friday night starter for most of the season – isn’t enough for an extension, what is?

Barring a mass portal exodus or catastrophe with the injury bug, 2026 will rival 2015 and 2019 as the Bruins’ best shot at winning a national title since 2013.

At the very least, it’s not a season that should be wasted on a new head coach.