Bob Chesney built on Curt Cignetti's success at James Madison, led the Dukes to unprecedented heights in their 2025 college football season and then agreed to take on the challenge of rebuilding UCLA.
Chesney has taken some key assistant coaches with him to Los Angeles as he works to make a fifth different NCAA program into a winner under his direction.
He's also not just taking on-field staffers with him.
Sources tell FootballScoop that Chesney is bringing Matt Transue, a ranking James Madison athletics department official prior to Chesney's arrival there, as well as Jordan Smith to fill upper-level executive posts in off-the-field roles.
Most recently James Madison's assistant athletics director for football, Transue is expected to join Chesney's UCLA program as his chief of staff, with operating duties, while Smith transitions as the senior director of football operations.
With Transue, Chesney brings into the Big Ten Conference UCLA program an executive with extensive Power Conference experience. Previous career stops for Transue include in the personnel and operations departments at the University of Tennessee, as well as at Virginia Tech in an extended run that also included operations and personnel responsibilities in Justin Fuentes's Hokies program.
Additional career stops for Transue include the University of Memphis and Georgia Southern in collegiate athletics plus work in professional baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals' AAA affiliate in Memphis.
Smith continues with Chesney after spending the past five years with the veteran coach and winner of 132 NCAA games. After joining Chesney's Holy Cross staff in something of a jack-of-all-trades role following the COVID-19 pandemic, Smith's set to remain in a top logistics role handling numerous facets for the program's travel to road games, daily operations in and out of season, as well as gameday procedures.
Chesney's top on-field coordinators at UCLA -- Dean Kennedy (offense), Colin Hitschler (defense) and Drew Canan (special teams) -- also all arrive from James Madison.
The task for Chesney & Co. is not insignificant. UCLA is just 6-12 in 18 games since the school's decision to join the Big Ten Conference amidst the collapse of the PAC-12 two years ago. The Bruins program has just three seasons this century of 10 or more wins.
Chesney arrives at UCLA with seasons of 10 or more wins in each of his three preceding coaching stops, from NCAA Division II program Assumption University to Football Championship Subdivision program Holy Cross and, most recently, James Madison's 12-win 2025 season.
UCLA is set to open its first season under Chesney with a rivalry matchup Sept. 5, 2026, at Cal, under the direction of first-year head coach Tosh Lupoi.