James Madison coach Bob Chesney, whose team moved up to No. 21 in the lastest AP Top 25 rankings as the Group of Five’s top playoff threat, is being targeted by UCLA for its coaching vacancy while also potentially being in the mix at Penn State. Chesney is UCLA’s leading candidate, according to 247Sports.
CBS Sports analyst Rick Neuheisel, who played at UCLA and later coached the team from 2008-11, knows the program quite well. His son, Jerry, currently serves as the Bruins offensive coordinator after being promoted following the firing of coach DeShaun Foster earlier this season.
“I’m hearing Bob Chesney at UCLA … he’s got to make a decision,” Rick Neuheisel said Saturday. “With Mike Elko reupping with Texas A&M, it seems like Penn State’s still got a spot and Chesney’s from the state of Pennsylvania, so maybe he’s waiting for something a little bit closer to home.”
Chesney, who’s 18-5 in the FBS ranks at James Madison, is a native of Kulpmont, Pennsylvania, where he starred as an all-conference cornerback at Dickinson College. After stints on various staffs following his playing career, the 48-year-old took his first head coaching job at Division III Salve Regina in 2010 before leading Division II Assumption, FCS Holy Cross and taking over at James Madison in 2024 following Curt Cignetti’s exit to Indiana.
At Holy Cross, Chesney earned Patriot League Coach of the Year accolades three times and won five conference championships in six seasons.
Chesney is making $833,495 at James Madison for the 2025 season, according to USA Today’s coaching salary database, which is the most the Dukes have paid their coach since entering the FBS ranks prior to the 2022 season. Cignetti presently makes 11 times that amount at Indiana.
Penn State fired James Franklin in October after a home loss to Northwestern marked the Nittany Lions’ third straight to begin Big Ten play. Nebraska’s Matt Rhule and Elko were perceived as early top targets before both reportedly enhanced their contracts at their current schools.
Chesney addressed his name being attached to other openings earlier this month during an appearance on “Wake Up Barstool” prior to wins over Marshall and Appalachian State.
The Dukes have already clinched a berth in the Sun Belt Championship and are three wins away from finishing 12-1 as the Group of Five’s highest-ranked team.
“There’s nothing really to talk about. … worry about what we’ve got to do here on a day-to-day basis, like every other coach in America,” Chesney said, “but ultimately to me, I think, there’s a lot of different guys that say a lot of different things when it comes down to it. I can tell you that we’re perfectly happy here. If you saw this student body and you saw the stands, this is a big-time place to play and coach football. We love everything about it.
“And ultimately, are there things that someday may show up that are life-changing? Possibly. But I’ve been in this situation a lot of times. In every place I’ve been, they always talk about, ‘Hey, he’s leaving.’ That seems to be a thing that happens all the time, especially in recruiting. For me, we just take it one day at a time and do the best we can. But at the end of the season, I think a lot of different people have a lot of different decisions to make — our players included nowadays.
“To me, the best thing is open and honest and transparent conversations with our players when those things come up. But we’re so focused right now on just being the best we can be. You don’t get to this point where I’m on this show, our name is in the conversation because we’re letting a lot of external conversations come into play.”
If hired at UCLA, Chesney would be taking a shot at leading a West Coast program for the first time.
