James Madison coach Bob Chesney has emerged as the target of UCLA’s coaching search, sources told ESPN.

He’s set to sign a five-year deal with UCLA, according to ESPN sources, that will be finalized after James Madison’s Sun Belt championship game.

Chesney’s James Madison team is 11-1 this season and plays Troy this week in the Sun Belt championship. UCLA has agreed with James Madison that Chesney will coach the Dukes if JMU wins the Sun Belt and ends up in the College Football Playoff field as one of five highest-ranked conference champions.

Chesney informed his team of his intention to leave Monday, sources told ESPN. Chesney jumped to the top of the list of candidates in this frenetic college coaching cycle, drawing interest for a number of the top openings, as JMU is ranked No. 19 in both the Associated Press and AFCA Coaches polls.

Once Chesney’s hiring is finalized, UCLA gets a coach with a consistent track record of winning, as athletic director Martin Jarmond and the UCLA search committee quickly coalesced around his candidacy early in the process.

Chesney, a Pennsylvania native, brings a background as an assistant coach on both defense and special teams. He has also developed a reputation as a turnaround artist, as he has resuscitated struggling programs at Division III Salve Regina, Division II Assumption University and turned FCS Holy Cross into a high-level winner. Along with being 20-5 at JMU, he’s 131-51 overall as a college head coach over 16 seasons. At Holy Cross, he led the school to four of the six FCS playoff appearances in school history, reaching four in a row from 2019 to 2022. He also led the Crusaders to five Patriot League titles.

UCLA’s courtship has been a long one, as it fired coach DeShaun Foster in mid-September after an 0-3 start. He finished his two-season tenure at 5-10.

The UCLA search committed included notable graduates such as longtime NBA executive Bob Myers and Commanders GM Adam Peters.

Jarmond and UCLA top football administrator Erin Adkins flew out and saw Chesney in Virginia nearly three weeks ago, according to sources. UCLA met with four candidates in person and quickly identified Chesney as the best fit. The committee viewed Chesney’s background through small college football and his knack of turning around programs as positives. Since arriving in the Big Ten, UCLA is 8-16 overall, bringing about a wake-up call that more investment is needed.

UCLA pitched to candidates a job with increased financial support, as well as the financial ambition to be competitive in the Big Ten and embrace the academic standards of UCLA. Chesney has worked at strong academic schools, including as an assistant at Johns Hopkins prior to becoming a head coach.

“He had an appreciation for UCLA, the academics and the Big Ten,” said a source familiar with the process. “He also had a detailed plan on how to turn the program around.”

Four-star prospect Bralan Womack, ESPN’s No. 3 safety in the 2026 class, flipped his commitment from Auburn to Mississippi State on Monday, sealing a historic late-cycle pledge for coach Jeff Lebby and the Bulldogs.

Womack, a 6-foot, 200-pound defender from Flowood, Mississippi, is the No. 39 overall prospect in the 2026 ESPN 300. If he signs later this week, Womack will join the in-state Bulldogs as the school’s highest-ranked signee in the ESPN recruiting era, dating to 2006.

Prior to Monday, Womack had spent the fall as the top-ranked commit in Auburn’s 2026 class after picking the Tigers over Florida, Ohio State and Texas A&M in August. However, Auburn’s decision to fire coach Hugh Freeze on Nov. 2 unsettled Womack’s recruitment, opening the door to late fall flip interest from LSU, Mississippi State and Texas A&M.

Womack’s exit from the Tigers’ incoming class comes one day after the program announced the hiring of South Florida coach Alex Golesh on Sunday. Womack, who visited Auburn for the Iron Bowl in Week 14, told ESPN on Nov. 25 that his decision would be tied closely to the outcome of the Tigers’ coaching search and interim coach D.J. Durkin’s role with the program in the future.

Whether or not Durkin will remain on Golesh’s staff remains unclear as of Monday.

Womack, ESPN’s No. 3 recruit in the state of Mississippi, won back-to-back state titles in his sophomore and junior seasons at Mississippi’s Hartfield Academy. He entered his senior campaign this fall as the state’s reigning Gatorade Football Player of the Year.

Womack has visited each of LSU, Mississippi State and Texas A&M since late October. He told ESPN that the Bulldogs turned up the heat on his recruitment early last month, eventually hosting him twice in November, most recently during last weekend’s Egg Bowl defeat to Ole Miss.

Womack said the Bulldogs’ pitched him on becoming the defensive version of star freshman quarterback Kamario Taylor — an in-state signee in the 2025 class who made his first career start in Week 14 — and highlighted the program’s progress across two seasons under Lebby.

“You can see his ability to go out and get players and build confidence in a locker room that didn’t have much when he walked in,” Womack said. That takes a lot. You can see what he’s doing.”‘

Womack now stands as the lone ESPN 300 pledge in Mississippi State’s 2026 signing class with the three-day early signing period set to open Wednesday morning. Prior to his flip, the Bulldogs’ incoming class sat at No. 49 in ESPN’s class rankings for the 2026 cycle.

Kentucky has fired football coach Mark Stoops.

The school’s athletic director announced the dismissal Monday, thanking Stoops for his dedication and leadership:

“His tenure transformed the program and reset expectations,” said athletic director Mitch Barnhart in a statement released on social media. “His tenure transformed the program and reset expectations. His time here was filled with memorable victories, a historic run of consecutive bowl appearances, and a commitment to developing young men both on and off the field.”

Announcing a change in @UKFootball leadership.

📰🔗 https://t.co/0FmG9PSclH pic.twitter.com/FydNaQAcRM

— Kentucky Athletics (@UKAthletics) December 1, 2025

Stoops just completed his 13th season at Kentucky with a 5-7 record after going 4-8 in 2024. Kentucky lost its final game of the year to rival Louisville 41-0 on Saturday.

Stoops, 58, went 72-80 during his time in Lexington (82-80 if including the 10-win 2021 season that was later vacated) and leaves as the winningest coach in school history. Bear Bryant is No. 2.

Stoops brought consistency to Kentucky, making bowl games every season from 2016 to 2023 and twice finishing in the AP top 20.

But Kentucky has had very few bright spots the past two seasons, and the university decided to move on despite Stoops being signed through June 2031 and earning $9 million this year.

Stoops is owed 75% of his remaining salary, which is approximately $37.7 million. That falls within the top five buyouts in college football history, four of which have come this year (the first three were Brian Kelly, $54 million; James Franklin, $49 million, though that was reduced when he took the job at Virginia Tech; and Jonathan Smith, $33 million).

Stoops’ last two years at Kentucky came in the wake of changes to NIL and revenue sharing in college football. Before that era, Stoops delivered some of the best seasons in school history. That included 10-win seasons in 2018, Kentucky’s first since 1977, and the aforementioned 2021 season since vacated.

He developed Kentucky into a program with toughness and player development as its hallmarks. The Wildcats had multiple players drafted every year from 2019 through 2025, including four first-round picks during his tenure.

Kentucky appeared to have found its quarterback for the future this season, as Stoops inserted freshman Cutter Boley as the starter in late September. The move paid dividends, as Kentucky took Texas to overtime and then won three straight games — at Auburn, Florida and Tennessee Tech. Boley threw 15 touchdown passes and completed 65.8% of his throws.

After the loss to Louisville on Saturday, Stoops — who chose to remain at Kentucky when other opportunities surfaced over the years — said he wasn’t going anywhere.

Asked after the game about the possibility of stepping down, Stoops told reporters, “Like, I’m going to walk away? Are you kidding me? … Zero percent chance I walk.”

Barnhart has pledged to “make the necessary investments to recruit an elite head coach” to “build a championship program for the people of Kentucky.”