An interim coach once again, Tim Skipper has UCLA rolling ‘full speed ahead’

It started with a knock on Tim Skipper’s office door a month ago. It crystalized in his mind when he heard recently UCLA would be on Big Noon Kickoff against Indiana — a suggestion that seemed so impossible a month ago that he would have assumed people were messing with him.

Everything else in between — the staff changes, a historic upset over Penn State, three straight wins, the fun that’s happening again in LA — is a blur for the Bruins’ 47-year-old interim head coach.

“I didn’t even know it’s been a month until you said it’s been a month,” Skipper told CBS Sports. “It’s just a lot of twists and turns. … I’m happy the whole organization is going in one direction, a healthy direction. The challenge is to keep it going.”

UCLA lost to New Mexico, 35-10, on Friday, Sept. 12.

Two days later the Bruins fired head coach DeShaun Foster. That’s when the UCLA administration approached Skipper, at the time a special assistant to the head coach, to take over.

Becoming an interim head coach is an exercise in managing chaos.

Players are upset. Families have questions. Coaches are caught between their current jobs and thinking about their next one. Schedules change. Roles change. Only the 60 minutes on Saturdays remain static.

Skipper knows what that disorder feels like. He experienced it a season ago at Fresno State, where he took over the Bulldogs in July after Jeff Tedford stepped away from the team for health reasons.

“Everyone wants to be a head coach, and you’re think you’re ready for it, but you have to learn by doing,” Skipper said. “So, when I was in this actual seat and it was time for me to have all the decisions be made and everything like that, it was a little overwhelming at the very beginning.”

Learning to balance being a ball coach and all the responsibilities of being a head coach takes time, and Skipper never had an offseason buffer. When he took over as Fresno State’s interim, industry sources considered Skipper the favorite to keep that job permanently with a solid season. Instead, the Bulldogs went 6-7, losing three of their final four regular season games.

Looking back at his year as Fresno State’s interim, Skipper thinks he practiced his team too hard. Injuries piled up at the season’s end, hurting the team down the stretch.

Granted another opportunity to be UCLA’s interim coach, Skipper attacked the job without hesitation.

“I never went through that phase where I felt I was overwhelmed,” Skipper said. “I knew exactly what I needed to do, how I needed to set the schedules. It’s just been full speed ahead.”

The way forward meant change.

That manifested in a few ways. Skipper wanted his team to have fun again. He’s an energy coach, someone who speaks in such a way you can almost feel him grinning through the phone. UCLA did nothing but lose for three weeks. So, Skipper took his entire team bowling. He wanted them to compete in a different environment and reset.

“That’s the first time in a month I saw the guys smile,” Skipper said. “I think that really carried over to where we are now. Guys are not afraid to show emotion, smile and laugh. Football is meant to be fun.”

Within two weeks of Foster’s firing, the Bruins parted ways with defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe and offensive coordinator Tino Sunseri in what Skipper termed as “mutual decisions” between the university and the outgoing coordinators.

The defensive shift happened first. 

Skipper, a defensive coach by trade, called taking over the defense a collaborative effort in the early days. But the real shift occurred when he convinced former Fresno State DC Kevin Coyle to join the Bruins’ staff.

Skipper basically hit the reset button on the entire defensive operation. He and Coyle flipped the scheme, shifting from a unit that rarely blitzed (16%) to a more blitz-heavy approach (31.6%) and playing far more man coverage, going from ninth in the Big Ten through three weeks to second in percentage of snaps in man.

That shift in scheme was coupled with a return to fundamentals, particularly tackling, angles and playing gap-sound football. Since reemphasizing the basics, the Bruins have gone from 15th in the Big Ten in missed tackles per game to fifth.

The Bruins allowed 36 points per game during their 0-3 start. They’re down to 21 points since Skipper and Coyle took over the defense.

UCLA’s offense underwent a similar transition under Jerry Neuheisel. The 33-year-old former Bruins quarterback, who sports a mop of blond hair, took over the offense ahead of the team’s game against Penn State.

The Bruins averaged 14.3 points per game through four weeks. They’ve averaged 33.3 points in the three games since Neuheisel took over.

When Skipper thinks about the successful transitions on both sides of the ball, he credits most of it to player buy in. Players often quiet quit when a head coach is fired. They flock to the portal or redshirt. It’s what happened at Oklahoma State and Virginia Tech, jobs that opened around the same time early in the year.

UCLA didn’t lose a single player to the portal or opt out to redshirt.

Skipper credits some of that to the program reemphasizing fun. Winning helps, too. But he believes the origin point was messaging from starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava after the team’s loss to Northwestern.

“He stood up in front the team and said, ‘If you don’t like what we’re doing, or you don’t want to be a part of it, quit now.,'” Skipper summarized, noting Iamaleava may have used stronger language.  “And nobody left. We’ve been full speed ahead since.”

Believe it or not, but the one-time 0-4 Bruins control their own destiny in the Big Ten. Is it likely UCLA comes close to sweeping a schedule that includes road games at Indiana, Ohio State and USC? No. But the fact a Big Ten title appearance is even a possibility through seven weeks seems absurd when you consider, just a month ago, the Bruins were Vegas underdogs for every remaining game on their schedule following the loss to New Mexico.

When told that many thought UCLA could go 0-12 following the team’s loss to Northwestern, it’s almost as if Skipper had to reboot.

“Man, 0-12, man,” Skipper said. “You shook my brain for a second. I’m so into winning 0-12 would have been a disaster. Maybe the team heard that. But that’s the first time I’ve heard we could go 0-12 like that.

“We were tired of all these temporary setbacks. Let’s go get some joy in our life. Let’s go get back to work, and let’s go win some games on Saturdays. You’re just seeing a collection of people that are putting their mind to it, that they want to change the direction of how the season’s going.”

There’s no telling what happens the rest of the way for the Bruins or their resurgent interim head coach. Just 10 months ago Skipper came up short in his interim role. Now, he’s doing so well in LA that industry sources openly ask whether he’ll be given a real opportunity to keep the job.

Skipper said he hasn’t talked with UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond about the job. He also pushed back on the idea he’s thinking much about it at all. But he’s willing to admit he’d be happy to be considered.

“I definitely wouldn’t turn it down, I’ll tell you that,” Skipper said with a laugh.