UCLA’s offensive line is going to look a little different this season, and that’s exactly how Bob Chesney wants it.
The Bruins are not treating the guard spots like sacred ground reserved for two set starters. After rotating three guards in the Week 1 win over Cal, Chesney made it clear Tuesday that the shuffling is here to stay.
This isn’t a case of a dead-even battle that never got resolved in fall camp, and it isn’t about keeping anybody content. It’s a deliberate plan.
“We're not hoping to settle on two guys,” Chesney said. “We're hoping to find a fourth, to be honest, and to rotate through even more if we can.
Defensive line does it every single series, and then you have to ask your offensive line to be out there for the entire game and no one else to get reps except for the starting five. And then what happens?
Someone gets a little nicked up and nobody has any experience other than those starting five. So that's by design.”
That approach showed up immediately against Cal. James Madison transfer Carter Sweazie opened at right guard, Eugene Brooks started at left guard, and Julian Armella mixed in at both guard spots.
Sweazie also got some work at left guard. Brooks stayed at left guard whenever he was on the field in Berkeley.
The result was a group that stayed fresh and helped power UCLA’s ground game. The Bruins ran for 277 yards and six touchdowns in Week 1, and the interior rotation was part of the formula.
Sweazie posted a 78.1 offensive grade from Pro Football Focus on 34 snaps. Brooks finished with a 72.5 grade on 49 snaps, while Armella earned a 70.6 on 31 snaps.
Chesney pointed to offensive line coach Chris Smith as the driving force behind the philosophy. Smith has rotated interior linemen everywhere he’s coached, including when he first worked with Chesney at Holy Cross in 2017.
“It's something that Coach Smith has been doing since I think he was the O-line coach at New Haven back in probably 2014,” Chesney said. “So, that is something that has served us well, and we're going to continue to do.”
The hope now is that even more UCLA interior linemen can earn that kind of trust. Chesney said the staff would welcome a deeper rotation inside if the performance stays clean.
“Those inside guys, we'd rotate them all day,” Chesney said. “If we could rotate 15 guys through in a game and there was no drop-off, that's exactly what we'd want to do.”
Riley Robell and another center are also in the mix in a game if Robell is healthy. But at guard, the rotating will be intentional.
It’s a notable wrinkle in what already shapes up as an interesting season.
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