In Reply to: CFB coaches on hot seat: 4 candidates on verge of getting fired after posted by mh on September 29, 2025 at 08:28:00
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UCLA just might have taken two giant steps toward hiring the right football coach.
Last week it was announced that Bob Myers and Adam Peters were part of a search committee that also included Casey Wasserman, Erin Adkins and Eric Kendricks.
All five members can add value, but it’s those first two names that are most intriguing.
Myers and Peters were part of the search team that hired Dan Quinn, who took the Washington Commanders to the NFC Championship game in his first season. Myers, the onetime UCLA forward who was a member of the school’s last basketball national championship in 1995, also presided over a glorious 11-year run as general manager of the Golden State Warriors in which the team hired coach Steve Kerr and won four NBA titles.
These guys know what it takes to win and how to get there.
Peters, a former UCLA defensive end who played for coach Bob Toledo in the late 1990s, has enjoyed many successes in scouting, player personnel and executive management, helping to clean up the mess left by Chip Kelly when Peters joined the San Francisco 49ers as vice president of player personnel in 2017 after a previous season in which the team went 2-14 under Kelly.
An excellent ESPN story by John Keim detailed the backstory on the search that led to Quinn’s hiring with the Commanders. Among the questions that Myers asked Quinn during the interview process was about the most adversity he had faced. Quinn talked about handling the aftermath and being accountable for his role as coach of the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI when they lost a 28-3 lead during a meltdown against the New England Patriots.
Asked more generally about what he would have changed about his time with the Falcons, Quinn discussed his blind spots and how he addressed them during his subsequent three seasons as defensive coordinator with the Dallas Cowboys.
According to the ESPN story, the Commanders ranked each coaching candidate in terms of leadership, intelligence, honesty, integrity, consistency of personality, communication and ability to build a staff. Quinn scored the highest of all candidates, meaning that the Commanders ended up with the coach who they thought could do the best job.
Can the Bruins land their top target? It’s going to be a lot harder than merely identifying excellent candidates given there could be limiting factors that preclude UCLA from securing its No. 1 choice. Among other things, the Bruins could be constrained by perceptions about their athletic department culture and lack of resources, particularly when it comes to name, image and likeness funds.
Candidates impressed by the committee might rightfully point out that with the exception of Adkins, the executive senior associate athletic director, these aren’t the people they’ll be working with once they take the job.
Can the committee sell candidates on UCLA’s offering the needed support to thrive? The Bruins might be best served by letting Myers and Peters lead the way and carry the most weight in selecting the successor to DeShaun Foster.