Report: UCLA Extends John Savage's Contract

UCLA has reportedly agreed to a three-year contract extension with 21-year head baseball coach John Savage just a few weeks after leading the Bruins to their fourth College World Series appearance during his tenure.

UCLA beat writer for the Los Angeles Times Ben Bolch first reported the contract extension on Thursday, July 3 on X (formerly Twitter).

Gabriela Garcia of the Daily Bruin further confirmed the news later Thursday night.

"UCLA has agreed to a three-year contract extension with Head Coach John Savage," a UCLA Athletics spokesperson told the Daily Bruin Thursday.

Salary and other details beyond the length of the contract are yet to be revealed.

It almost shouldn't have been a question on whether or not UCLA should extend Savage following their trip to Omaha that ended with a loss to No. 3 ranked Arkansas. Savage signed a massive contract extension after winning in Omaha 12 years ago, making him one of the highest-paid coaches in all of baseball at the time. And now the Bruins will be bringing him back for three more, which is coincidentally in line with his young core of freshmen and sophomores that outperformed this year.

Going from winning 19 games in 2024 to being two wins away from a national championship appearance in 2025, Savage's 29-win turnaround was one of the biggest in Division-I baseball and the trajectory of this young Bruins team is looking better than ever. Housing the Big Ten Player of the Year, Roch Cholowsky, who is only a sophomore along with many of his other teammates, the roster is primed for an even better run than the one it made this season.

In his postgame press conference after being eliminated from the postseason, Savage was surely talking like he'd be around for the foreseeable future, detailing each spot the team would improve next season and beyond.

"You've got to evaluate everything," Savage said of where the team can improve ahead of next season, noting a list of things that include roster construction, the transfer portal, the draft and high school prospects among other things. "There's just so much that makes a program. Strength. That's the one thing that I would say that I walked away from this thing is, we got to get a lot stronger physically.

"Some of these guys are 23 and some of us are 18. That, alone in itself, makes a difference. But, at the same time, we got to get stronger physically."

UCLA's offense was on a roll for most of the beginning of the postseason and the bullpen was strong all season. Starting pitching is one of the areas Savage believes can be improved.

"I think our starting pitching has to get better, clearly," he said. "We've had really good starting pitching, but we have to make sure we have a couple frontline ones and twos that will carry the freight over the weekend. Several guys have a chance to be those guys.

"So there's a slot of things that you gotta still look at and say, 'you know what? we've got to get better in those areas.' And I love doing that. That's part of my job and certainly we're going to be looking at a lot of different things."

The Bruins have one of the highest upsides of any program in college baseball and Savage is eager to get back to Omaha next year.