The NBA released a statement moments ago that Hall of Famer and UCLA legend Bill Walton died at the age of 71 following a battle with cancer:

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A third story looks at the depth UCLA has stocked up for 2025, with a look at how the added luxury gives the program flexibility in a time of constant roster turnover:

Signal is going up

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The women’s softball team punched their ticket for the college World Series in Oklahoma City. They beat an offensive minded Georgia team who usually scores an average of six runs a game and in the two games they played — UCLA out scored him 15 to 1. UCLA’s defense was amazing!

He’s a grad transfer from LSU. He was a Top Five RB coming out of HS. But he has had an injury plagued college career with only a 1,000 yrs spanning 3 years.
He would come in as the third back in the rotation. Cheap insurance for the upcoming season

The latest on their recruitments here:

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Now that I’ve had a day without any assignments post-spring ball, Odom was among my calls this afternoon after our schedules kept having us miss connecting with one another.

I’ll have the formal story up first thing tomorrow morning, but he told me that he “liked the school more than I did before” as he reflected on his official visit to UCLA and compared to his unofficial earlier during spring camp.

Odom got a better feel from Ikaika Malloe and Tony Washington Jr. as far as their plans for the defense and him specifically, if he ends up at UCLA.

He also got a kick out of spending extended time with Laiatu Latu during one of the dinners, talking both about football and things outside of football.

His upcoming official visit schedule looks like this: Ohio State (June 7), Oregon (June 14), USC (June 21).

There’s also a May 31 weekend OV that has many teams trying to lock him in:

Colorado, Georgia, Penn State and “possibly a few others” in contention for that weekend. “Some other schools are really trying to get me to go there, too.”

Some of you may be aware of James H. Williams, who also covers UCLA as part of the Southern California News Group team and hosts the “Bleav in UCLA” football podcast.

He had me on this afternoon and the episode is now live, if podcasts are more your medium. Just went into the general overview of recruiting now that Foster’s staff has had some time and landed some commits, how things have differed in the way things were done under Chip Kelly, and that sort of thing.

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TE Noah Flores, who took an official this past weekend, has a 2 p.m. announcement coming… trying to confirm for sure at the moment it’s him.

UCLA will have consecutive 6 p.m. PT kickoffs on FOX at home against Iowa (Nov. 8) and on the road at Washington (Nov. 15), the program announced Wednesday.

What’s he waiting for. Nebraska got their QB

Madden Iamaleava is the headliner for UCLA this weekend:

As Tony Washington Jr. recruits the Carolinas this week, one of the recruits he checked out Wednesday was four-star 2026 safety J’Zavien Currence of Rock Hill (S.C.) South Pointe.

Rivals has him ranked 101st nationally in the class.

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St. John Bosco edge rusher Epi Sitanilei was one of the notable official visitors on campus this weekend, and the Bruins were already in a good position ahead of the trip but only helped themselves over the last couple days. Sitanilei has not committed, but he has the Bruins right in the mix and firmly in his top group following a positive return trip to Westwood.

"They set the standard so high, that as I go to the other schools I'll be comparing it to UCLA and see if they can even match what they did for me on my visit."

Read the full update at the link above.

I live near DC now and listen to sports radio often when I am in my car. Doc Walker, TE under Donahue, and more recent Bruin TE Logan Paulsen are both radio personalities here.

Obviously Troy Aikman is a national figure. Bob Myers made a pretty good jump.

Who else from UCLA has transitioned their athletic career into sports media and is currently active?

Calimony (meaning): UCLA will have to drain its budget to the tune of $10,000,000 a year for 3 years At Least. That will hurt Bruin athletics vs Big Ten. UC brain trust doesn't care. Their northern California queen hasn't achieved as much as the Bruins so maybe that extra NIL $ will help the Bears. IMHO it's a joke.. Meritocracy suffers again.

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A good group of local high schools are here for a 7-on-7 event, including Huntington Beach and Mater Dei.

Those two are my particular focus today, with the likes of 2027 QB Brady Edmunds and 2026 OLB Shaun Scott among those who have visited UCLA recently.

Will also be looking to get to 2026 WR Chris Henry Jr. since he recently picked up an offer.

A snapshot of the players scheduled to arrive Friday:

Where the Bruins’ assistants will be to start the week:

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Are they each being promised money early in the process? Do they negotiate right before they commit?

How much total is it for UCLA? How much is reserved for current players? Transfers?

It sure seems unsustainable In conjunction with unlimited transferring.

My guess is that UCLA finds maybe $4M a year for the team. Big schools probably find 5-10 times that much.

I dislike Chip but I like his idea about a salary cap. Based on a % of total TV revenue plus NIL money minus exceptions for room and board and school and training. Something like $30M is the max a program can offer and they have to figure out how to calculate the costs of the other benefits like the NFL does. Of course then we go back to the old version of the bag man.

Colleges sure screwed this up by not getting ahead of it. They could easily have created a system where freshmen get up to $10k stipend at school’s expense, sophomores $15k, etc
Then the school manages the NIL process and kids get a percentage of nil money and full ability to deny opportunities. So a guy like Caleb Williams could still make his $20k plus a few hundred thousand through NIL.

Particularly interesting: The proposal also seeks to allow any 10 staff members to be in the pool of “countable” coaches, in addition to the head coach, available to recruit off campus.

This would include a director of player personnel, which would be a win for a school like UCLA. Plenty of recruits have brought up Stacey Ford’s name as one of their better relationships on staff.


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UCLA’s staff is really in tune with taking past conversations with the official visitors and highlighting what they delve into and tailoring each recruit’s experience as best they can: