The UCLA marching band lined the wall, instruments drawn like soldiers preparing for battle.

Bruin players, coaches and donors sat, eyes trained on an empty podium soon to be occupied.

The silence was deafening. The anticipation was palpable. The excitement was tangible.

And as soon as the sounds of the UCLA fight song reverberated throughout the Centennial Ballroom at the Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center on Tuesday morning, an unfamiliar feeling permeated the air as new UCLA football head coach Bob Chesney took the stage – hope.

And it did not take long for Chesney to instill that foreign feeling into the Bruin faithful.

“This is a town where we can look at the Lakers, we can look at the Dodgers, we can look at so many other teams that are rich in history of winning,” Chesney said. “That is what we need to bring back here. We don’t need to be the other school in this town. We need to be the school in this town, and I promise that will happen here in the very, very near future.”

The current James Madison football coach – a team he will lead in the College Football Playoff against No. 5 seed Oregon on Dec. 20 – left no stone unturned in his introductory press conference.

He refused to sugarcoat the state of his soon-to-be program, and he left no ambiguity about the expectations he has of his new team.

“It always starts with this question, “Can they win in the place they are currently at?” And to me, there is zero doubt in my mind that we can win here at UCLA,” Chesney said. “The 125 national championships to be held here, 11 banners hanging in the pavilion. The things that come with it, to me, are just this expectation. And what we are doing is not the norm at this current state and time.”

Athletic director Martin Jarmond highlighted that alignment from university leadership to the athletic department and subsequently through to the football coach is necessary for UCLA to get back to sustained success.

And Chesney’s proposed vision for the Bruins aligns exactly with what Chancellor Julio Frenk and the head coach hiring committee wanted in the team’s next head honcho.

“We have made what I believe is a transformational hire who will ensure our program lives up to the storied UCLA athletics legacy,” Frenk said. “We have found, in coach Bob Chesney, exactly the right leader to help bring greatness, pride and a winning tradition back to UCLA football.”.

And Frenk’s vision was not shared by him alone.

The entire hiring committee felt that Chesney wanted the UCLA job and that he valued everything the university had to offer – whether it was the school’s reputation for academic excellence, a location in Los Angeles and an unrivaled athletic history.

It was clear to the committee that Chesney was going to get a job somewhere, and it was his buy-in to the city, the school and the program that made that place UCLA.

“Our goal was to identify, recruit and hire a coach who has a vision for UCLA football – competing for championships, someone who recognizes the privilege of representing the four letters and sees opportunity and advantages in everything about this university, from its history and its brand to his location and strong academic standards. … Without a shadow of a doubt, coach Bob Chesney is that person,” Jarmond said.

The hiring committee – which was comprised of Eric Kendricks, Adam Peters, Erin Adkins, Bob Myers and Casey Wasserman – noted that Chesney’s ability to turn programs around was one of his most appealing attributes.

Chesney has taken over a losing program at three out of his four prior head coaching stops, and in each of those three spots, he has taken the team to the conference championship game within three years of assuming the helm. Chesney’s prior teams’ combined five-year record before his hire is 62-123, while his teams’ record with him at the top is 111-46.

“We wanted to find someone who’s been around winning,” Myers said. “And what stood out with Bob was that he had done it in a variety of places and had shown the ability to lead and lead in places that are hard to win. To get somebody that we thought would build a program was important to us, someone that we thought could be here for 20 years and someone who wanted to be for 20 years.”

Chesney’s resume speaks for itself, and there is a belief that Chesney can replicate what he did at his previous stops before Westwood. There is hope that he can bring UCLA back to national relevance in the college football world.

But to turn around the team’s internal culture, he has to reshape the stigmatized perceptions from the student body and fans.

And that’s a task Chesney is already committed to tackling.

“To our student body – we need you now more than ever. This is not just our team. This is your team,” Chesney said. “To the administrators, to the professors, as classes go on, I will be reaching out to a lot personally to make sure that those relationships are present. I will be present on campus and make sure I go around personally and go around and do class checks – this is also your team.”

Chesney is a winner.

The Bruin head coach has done it as a head coach at four other schools.

He has yet to coach a game for the university.

But after an introductory press conference full of expectations, anticipation, enthusiasm and a renewed sense of spirit, he is already 1-0 at UCLA.