UCLA Football: DeShaun Foster Looking to Win Over City of Los Angeles

Valentina Martinez | Aug 27, 2024

Feb 13, 2024; Los Angeles, CA, USA; DeShaun Foster answers questions from media after he was introduced as the new head football coach of UCLA Bruins during a press conference at Pauley Pavilion. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Bruins head coach DeShaun Foster wants UCLA football to be the talk of the town. A dream that was once a reality when Foster himself donned the Blue and Gold.

The Bruins enter the Big Ten conference this season. Before the 2024 season commenced, a number of media polls already projected UCLA to finish in the bottom five.

They're true underdogs, just like Foster was when he played UCLA football. He eventually outperformed the two primary running backs for the Bruins, Jermaine Lewis and Keith Brown, in his first season with the Bruins.

Foster never started a game for UCLA in the 1998 season, yet he recorded more carries than the older running backs.

Foster played in the golden age of UCLA football, a time when the program won a school-record 20 consecutive games in the late 1990s.

Foster established himself in a matchup with cross-town rivals, USC. He became the first true freshman in UCLA history to score four touchdowns in a single game.

Foster helped lead the Bruins to a 34-17 victory over the Trojans with three rushing touchdowns and a receiving score.

“You want to get it right back,” Foster told Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times, “to just so we can walk around campus with our chest out a little bit.”

UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond believed Foster was the right fit for the head coach position given his own experience sporting the Blue and Gold.

“We want somebody that wants to be a Bruin,” Jarmond said in February. “Well, we didn’t get somebody that wants to be a Bruin. We got a Bruin. Come on out, coach.”

Foster was inducted into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame in 2022. Despite having a slim resume as a Big Ten coach, he has a unique vantage point given his time as a Bruin.

UCLA will hit the ground running as the program takes on Louisiana State, Oregon, Penn State and USC.

It's certainly a grueling schedule, but Foster isn't intimidated by the daunting prospect.

“We’ve got to play ball,” Foster said. “That’s why talking isn’t really my forte because you can talk all you want and you get out here and lay an egg and now what? Or you can not be a good talker and get out here and get these boys to play some ball, and that’s what it’s about.”

This isn't the first time the odds were stacked against Foster, but that never dissuaded him from reaching his goal. Foster wants his program to be adored by the city of Los Angeles, and based on his history, nothing is out of reach.