How Did These UCLA Transfers Perform in 2024? Part 4

The 2025 college football season is looming, which means UCLA Bruins fans will finally get their first look at some of the Bruins' incoming transfers from the offseason.

DeShaun Foster went to work in the transfer portal in his first full offseason as Westwood's head coach and lured 29 transfers to cultivate the 20th-ranked transfer class in the nation on 247Sports' transfer ranking board.

In this new UCLA Bruins on SI series, we're going to dive into each transfer and how they did last season, including a few evaluations from national college football analysts.

In part four, we're going to look at three power five transfers -- Courtland Ford, Cole Martin and Robert Safford.

Courtland Ford, Redshirt Senior TR OT, Kentucky Wildcats

Ford is coming into Westwood as a de facto starter at left tackle. He has one year of eligibility remaining and was a three-star-rated transfer and the 21st overall offensive tackle in the portal.

"Overall, offensive line transfer portal recruiting has been intriguing. UCLA has, so far, added Ford, FSU's Julian Armella, and Oklahoma's Eugene Brooks. Both Armella and Brooks were highly regarded high school prospects, but Ford, the lightly regarded three-star out of high school, is the one that has produced the most in a college uniform. In other words, he might be the surest bet among the three to perform up to your expectations. For UCLA to be an upgrade on the offensive line this year, though, the Bruins will need to hit, to some extent at least, on all three. New offensive line coach Andy Kwon has done some good work here to add some talented bodies. There are still some irons in the fire, but it's already clear that he'll have some tools to work with come April and spring ball." -- Bruin Report Online Staff

Cole Martin, Redshirt Sophomore TR S, Arizona State Sun Devils

Martin was a former four-star prospect out of Arizona and made a stop in Oregon before transferring to the Sun Devils last season. He is also the son of UCLA's secondary coach, Demetrice Martin. Cole brings championship pedigree as he wont he Big 12 championship with Arizona State last season.

"UCLA has completely redone its secondary for next year, and while some of the spots there might be a dropoff from last year, we're less worried about nickel now. While we're usually a little leery of a coach's kid playing a key role here at BRO (the Steve Alford era still looms large in our psyche), Martin is good enough in his own right that his presence is actually a benefit of having Demetrice Martin on staff, not a cost you have to pay for having him on staff. This is a very good pickup." -- Bruins Report Online Staff

Robert Stafford, Redshirt Sophomore TR CB, Miami Hurricanes

Stafford was a Christmas Day gift for Bruins fans, announcing his transfer commitment to the Bruins on Dec. 25. He was a four-star out of high school and has three years of eligibility remaining.

"UCLA has gone two different ways with the Portal so far -- proven players at lower levels (Scooter Jackson, Andre Jordan) and former high-level prospects who haven't yet panned out at the college level (Eugene Brooks, Julian Armella). Stafford definitely is in the second bucket, but like Brooks, he really hasn't been out of high school that long, so the shine shouldn't be completely off of him at this point. He's basically redshirted and then played as a backup as a redshirt freshman on a pretty good team -- many good college careers have started that exact same way. This is a good pickup to take a gamble on, and UCLA will have multiple years to see a return on its investment here." -- Bruin Report Online Staff