Bob Chesney said his team was in “win now” mode.

In fact, at halftime of the UCLA men’s basketball game against Indiana on Jan. 31, the football head coach went as far as saying that the team would hang a Big Ten championship banner.

But as much as Chesney is focused on 2026, he is also building for the future.

The Bruins 2027 recruiting class is currently ranked No. 19 nationally, per 247Sports – the program’s highest-ranked cohort since 2018.

UCLA already has three four-star prospects just one year after signing zero in 2026.

Headlining the group are safeties Khalil Terry and Pole Moala. Terry – who ranks as the No. 206 prospect and No. 19 safety in the country – picked UCLA over football powerhouses Notre Dame and Alabama.

Moala – ranked as the No. 227 prospect and No. 28 safety in the nation – will join the Bruins from Lawndale, California, and picked UCLA over Power Four schools Michigan, Oklahoma, Ole Miss and California.

The Bruins’ last four-star is linebacker Colton McKibben, who ranks as the No. 317 prospect, No. 20 linebacker and top-ranked recruit from New Mexico. McKibben chose Westwood over Big 12 schools Baylor, Arizona, Arizona State and SEC powerhouse Auburn.

While Chesney’s 2027 recruitment is far from complete, his early success is indicative of a larger theme emerging in Westwood.

Chesney is making UCLA a desirable place to be again.

Not only is the football head honcho drawing in high-ranked recruits, but he is also getting prospects to choose UCLA – a program that finished 3-9 in 2025 and had zero NFL draft picks in the 2026 NFL Draft for the first time since 2012 – over football powerhouses.

Chesney does not have West Coast ties, UCLA football has failed to meet the pedigree of its other athletic programs over the last several years and the football program has little brand recognition – at least when compared to the Michigans and Alabamas of the world.

So how is he doing it?

For Chesney, it all comes down to transparency, accessibility and relationships.

And the former James Madison coach has made that evident through his first Spring practices in Westwood. UCLA hosted over 175 recruits and coaches from three different states at Friday evening’s practice.

“People said, ‘You’re coming from the East Coast, how do you build relationships?’ Chesney said. “Well, we got to start them, and I thought we did a good job on the road throughout the Spring, and having all these guys here is going to be really important. We’re going to go up and hang out and do a little more work with them as well.”

Chesney made it clear that as soon as he took the UCLA job, he was going to be at every school he possibly could to help keep the guys in the Bruins’ backyard in Los Angeles.

And the football coach has kept his promise so far, establishing relationships with all of the big-name schools in the Southern California area.

Central to furthering these relationships is being present.

Chesney has ensured this accessibility by allowing recruits and their coaches to attend practices and team and coach meetings, so prospects can fully understand what Chesney is trying to build and what his development process looks like.

And with all of the recruits and coaches in attendance Friday evening, Chesney designed his practice to further that philosophy, intentionally designing the flow of practice so people could get an inside look at how the new-look UCLA operates.

“The way this thing was set up was that these coaches were going to come in to get a big programmatic overview – big offensive and defensive overview – and then they went off to their position rooms, and then they went through all the different drills that coaches were doing to help develop their players,” Chesney said.

Chesney went one step further, explaining that when people watch UCLA football on TV, the true program is not fully illustrated.

Face-to-face interactions and watching a raw practice are imperative for high school players to gain real exposure to what the Bruins are all about.

“When will they find out who we are, when they watch games on TV, or when one coach goes to visit them in high school?” Chesney said. “Here they are with a whole staff out there getting a chance to watch a practice, get a chance to feel exactly what we’re all about, how we do things, the tempo with which we move, the passion, the energy, the joy that we play with, the toughness that we play with – all those things that are really important for them to understand what their players will be entering into if they choose UCLA.”