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La Verne (Calif.) Damien four-star safety Gavin Williams, a 2027 recruit, tells me he will be visiting UCLA on Friday morning. He was offered by the Bruins in January.

The Saturday, April 12 practice will feature an exclusive event hosted by NIL football collective Bruins For Life

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UCLA had a group of visitors from Foothill College on campus Friday.

It’s the same school of edge defender Joshua Shanklin, who will be taking an official visit next week.

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Includes some of the video interviews from Rivals Camp you’ve already seen if you followed along with that thread.

Plus, full thoughts from two other interviews at the camp that I didn’t film.

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Press conference before practice gets underway at 9 a.m.

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WR Jonah Smith, the first commit in UCLA’s 2026 class, remains committed as the Bruins’ crosstown rival reportedly has shown interest.

Smith discussed the broken tibia that cost him most of his junior year, the coaching shuffle at UCLA, and more:

Tracy McDannald said:

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UCLA and Cal are his top two. Official visit to UCLA is May 10.

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The story based off my conversation with him over the weekend at Rivals Camp:

Cronin is a coach who can sometimes do more with less. He can take scrappy players and make them look better than they may be by making them commit to defense.

He can also take superior talent and make them play down to a level below they are capable. His three year development plan is wildly outdated.

His demeanor is outdated. Very few coaches act like psychopaths any longer. And even fewer deflect blame like Cronin does. Parents obviously take notice. No wonder southern CA kids choose Duke over us. One team plays freshman stars and runs a pro style offense and one sits freshmen and punishes them if they make a mistake. One scores points and is a perennial top 10 team and the other struggles to be ranked.

His defensive game plan against decent teams has been laughable. Purdue has a big guy who is good down low. And two guys who can hit outside shots. We consistently put a single player on the post player, and that player isn’t a good post defender. Why not wear him out and put Mara and Kyle on him all game? Let them get 3 fouls each before you pivot to Bilo. And how many wide open shots do we allow their guards to get before you yank Clark or Mack for losing their man? After the game he blamed the PnR defense? Because Purdue had 14 assists total? There were like 4 obvious lapses on the PnR, but much more of the problem was that the players weren’t coached in Purdue’s tendencies.

Offense is half of basketball. And the rules favor the offense so it’s probably more like 60% of the game. Furthermore, guys look better when they score 15 ppg than 8. Cronin is actually inept coaching offense. Dribbling and handing off around the perimeter and launching guarded outside shots (or 12 footers for Bilo) isn’t a good plan. Kobe and Mack both had last second bail out 3s, but that isn’t a recipe for success. Why can’t Mick see what casual fans can?

If you have a potential NBA player like Perry or a unicorn like Mara or a high flying shot blocker like Kyle, you figure out how to develop them and get them on the court.

I don’t see Cronin changing. We deserve better. We might get worse but we need to try to find a coach with more upside who makes players shine.

I know it’s a hard job. I don’t like change. But it’s why one contract makes these guys generationally wealthy. It’s time we move on to make someone else generationally wealthy.

Here are some more of the notable recruits who visited UCLA on Monday, the first day schools were allowed to have them back on campus:

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According to Rivals national recruiting analyst Sam Spiegelman, here are the spring visits he’s got lined up:

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Hypothetically speaking, if one sport could get an infusion of $100M, which would it be? Let’s assume that right now the budgets are tre $16M for football and $8M for basketball. $100M would add $12M a year for 10 years.

For me, if UCLA got $100M for basketball, they could get any coach they wanted and that coach could get any players he wanted. It would be a matter of finding the best players for the system and coaching them up. I can’t imagine if you had 4 of the top 5 players from the West each year and on average they stayed two years, you don’t win titles.

Sadly with football, $12M buys a good offensive and defensive line but nothing more. Top QBs are getting $2M+. And with football, it’s harder to see how high school results translate into college success.

I’m currently juggling a few things to get some work done ahead of time since I’ll be out freelancing the start of the state high school basketball playoffs tomorrow.

So my focus tonight will be divided and a breakdown may come a bit later in the night, FYI.

Five teams here:

It’s that time of the year again, as we’ll be out at East L.A. College when the Rivals Camp Series kicks off in Southern California.

The bulk of the camp will take place Sunday, with more than three dozen UCLA targets and commits among the growing list of more than 230 recruits across the 2026, 2027 and 2028 classes.

So there will be plenty more football recruiting coverage coming by this weekend and into next week, including updates on some of those who have locked in official visits and others who will be spring visitors.

The latest on a lot of big names from this past weekend:

Recruits are now allowed back on college campuses coming out of the dead period.

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The latest on some big names from LA:

Includes the video interview I did with him prior to the start of Sunday’s camp:

Game of year at 6 on Fox

first year as HC. I would give him a B+ thus far. He's made some mistakes along the way, but he's also made some improvements too. I like his approach towards recruiting and his decision to hire a new staff after he recognized that his old coaching staff was not working out.

Tyler Bilodeau

IT WAS A THREE-POINT GAME AND YOU GOT CAUGHT UP WITH KAUFMAN-RENN, THE REFS SEPARATED YOU GUYS. SEEMED LIKE A REALLY PHYSICAL GAME DOWN THERE.

“Yeah.”

WHAT WAS IT LIKE MATCHED UP WITH HIM AND ALL THAT PHYSICALITY?

“Nah, it was a really physical game. I think they were a little more physical than us that game. But yeah, he’s a great player. You saw it, he played a great game.”

WHAT MAKES HIM SO TOUGH DOWN THERE?

“He’s really strong when he gets to his right hand. Like you saw, he was making a lot of shots, just contested shots, with his right hand.”

WERE THE REFEREES KIND OF LETTING YOU GUYS PLAY TONIGHT?

“Yeah, I thought it was a physical game, yeah.”

DEFENSIVELY, COACH SAID HE WANTS TO SEE IMPROVEMENT IN PICK-AND-ROLL COVERAGE AND POST DEFENSE.

“Yeah.”

WHAT CAN YOU GUYS DO BETTER?

“Nah, we just gotta pay attention more to the scouting report. And then, yeah, stopping the ball, I gotta do a better job of stopping the ball. So, that’s what I would say.”

ON OFFENSE, WHEN THEY WENT ON THAT 12-0 RUN TO PULL AWAY, WHAT WAS TAKEN OUT OF THERE FLOW?

“Yeah, I think we had some turnovers, and then they got a couple rebounds too. They hurt us and they went on that run.”

WHAT ABOUT SETTLING FOR TOO MANY JUMP SHOT, TOO?

“Yeah, I think we should’ve tried to get the ball more inside. They were trapping, and then we could’ve got the open three there when they trapped. But yeah, just gotta learn from it.”

PLAYED WELL FOR 30-PLUS MINUTES, BUT OBVIOUSLY IT WAS A LOSS. HOW DO YOU TAKE THE PROS AND THE CONS? WHAT’s YOUR BIG TAKEAWAY FROM THIS?

“Yeah, I think we gotta watch our breakdowns. I mean, we started the game with way too many turnovers. Gotta eliminate those. And then, I thought we did a decent job on the glass. I thought we did a good job offensive rebounding, could’ve been better in the second. I think the second half, we let up a little bit. But yeah, we just gotta learn from this one and be ready, get ready for the next one.”

The preview, for those who haven’t seen it:


And the story on the potential increased playing time for Aday Mara:

Players have made their way to Indianapolis before the testing and measurements get underway this week.

Kain Medrano on some familiarity meeting with the Chicago Bears:

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