Continued Mediocrity At UCLA And Virginia Tech Results In More Than $12 Million In Buyouts

Conference play has yet to begin and two teams already fired their coaches. Such was the level of desperation and failure in Westwood and Blacksburg that UCLA said goodbye to DeShaun Foster after all of 15 games, and Virginia Tech bid adieu to Brent Pry after three-plus seasons.

Contract buyouts are such that Foster’s firing costs UCLA $6.24 million while Virginia Tech is also on the hook for more than $6 million given Pry’s deal.

As the post-firing financial commitments pile up, so have the losses in recent years at both schools. Foster, who had an exceptional career as a running back for the Bruins under Bob Toledo at the turn of the century, spent 10 of 11 years as an assistant at his alma mater, including seven as the running backs coach, before joining Antonio Pierce’s staff with the Las Vegas Raiders in February 2024. Two weeks later, after Chip Kelly left UCLA to become the OC at Ohio State, Foster was lured back to be the Bruins’ head coach. He signed a five-year deal with a base salary beginning at $3 million in 2024. (Where is Kelly today? He is the Raiders’ offensive coordinator.)

Foster took over mere weeks before spring practice began ahead of UCLA’s first season as a Big Ten member, and with the nation’s most demanding travel schedule. The Bruins went 3-6 against conference opponents last season, and 5-7 overall despite scoring less than 21 points in 10 of 12 games. They averaged 18.4 points to rank 126^th among were 134 FBS teams.

The offense appeared to get a jolt of energy in the spring with the signing of disgruntled Nico Iamaleava, who threw for 2,616 yards and 19 touchdowns in helping lead Tennessee to the College Football Playoff in his first year as a starting quarterback. That has worked out really well, hasn’t it?

Of course, it is not all on Iamaleava, whose brother, Madden, is a freshman quarterback on the Bruins. (Will they be in the portal by the end of the month?) While Iamaleava is 97^th nationally in pass efficiency among 118 qualified FBS quarterbacks, New Mexico shredded the Bruins’ defense to the tune 450 yards in what was beyond an eye-opening 35-10 win for the Lobos at the Rose Bowl on Saturday. The defeat, which included a $1.2 million payout, dropped UCLA to 0-3 and concluded Foster’s tenure at 5-10.

To be kind, UCLA has been bumping along for a number of years. Only three of the previous nine seasons resulted in winning marks, a stretch highlighted by a 9-4 showing in 2022 when Kelly’s squad ascended to as high as No. 9 in the AP poll. Kelly went 35-34 in six seasons leading the Bruins, who are 50-59 the 10 past seasons, including the current one.

Embarrassing losses continue to plague Hokies

A 20-17 season-opening loss at Old Dominion in 2022 was interesting on several levels, not the least being the first of now four meetings between Pry and his counterpart on the opposite sideline, Ricky Rahne, who simultaneously served as coordinators on James Franklin’s staff at Penn State. It was also a terribly embarrassing way for the curtain to rise on Pry’s head coaching career. That curtain, at least in Blacksburg, has dropped.

Can you imagine the feeling after Saturday’s 45-26 demolition in which the Monarchs piled up 29 first downs and 526 yards, and the Hokies provided another 113 yards on a dozen penalties? Athletic director Whit Babcock voiced his displeasure in dismissing Pry, who agreed to a six-year, $27.5 million deal in December 2021, after Tech dropped to 0-3 and the coach to 16-24, including losing seven of his last eight. The Hokies have allowed 448 yards per game to rank 126th among 136 FBS teams.

Beginning with the 2012 season, which was the 26^th of 29 in the great career of Frank Beamer in Blacksburg, the Hokies have achieved only one double-digit win season – Justin Fuente’s 10-4 debut in 2016 – and on only four occasions have won as many as eight games. More recently, since the start of 2018, Fuente’s third season post-Beamer and with a roster he mostly constructed, Virginia Tech is 41-49 and finished below .500 five of the past seven seasons.

The last time the Hokies had such a poor stretch was 1973 to 1979 under Charles Coffey, Jimmy Sharpe and Bill Dooley, who turned things around for the then-independent program beginning in 1980.