UCLA football recruiting has seen better days.
Bruins head coach Chip Kelly is highly regarded by many recruits AllBruins.com has spoken with, but still, the program hasn't been recruiting well these past few classes. While they have managed to leverage the transfer portal well, kids coming out of high school haven't received the UCLA recruiting pitch as much as (we're guessing) UCLA would hope for.
In a media availability session with gathered reporters last week, Chip Kelly responded to a question about the relationship between NIL and recruiting:
"Every single kid asks about NIL opportunities. Every kid out there, because that's available to every kid out there... That's just the nature of what recruiting has turned into when they changed the rules, so. That's a huge part of it."
The same reporter then asked how important it is for Kelly's staff to raise the profile of UCLA's NIL efforts (including UCLA's NIL collective Men of Westwood) in communication with recruits. Kelly's response:
"I think it's all incumbent on everybody. So, you talk about it all the time, you try to reach out to people to contribute to it (Men of Westwood) but you can't make someone contribute to it that doesn't want to contribute to it".
Kelly went on to highlight why he thinks people could make the decision to donate to the collective after the reporter asked if Kelly would "be a billboard" for NIL by wearing a Men of Westwood shirt.
"Yeah, I don't think anybody's going to donate because I wear a Men of Westwood shirt. You know, I think they donate money because they're proud of what the program stand for and so, what's the academic success, what are the type of players that you're bringing into the program. How do they represent the university. I think that's what people take pride in at UCLA, not the fact that somewhere wears a t-shirt".
UCLA currently has 13 commits in its 2024 recruiting class. For context, Rutgers has 23. The longer that commit number stays at 13 as signing day approaches, the more likely UCLA could be very active, again, in the transfer portal.
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