Curt Cignetti knows what a good football coach looks like. Sometimes, he spots one before the rest of the industry catches up. Bob Chesney is a pretty good example, and the Indiana head coach is now explaining how he helped put him on the path to a much bigger job.

Speaking on The Pat McAfee Show, Curt Cignetti tipped his hat to the first-year UCLA coach who kept on winning. He revealed that he personally recommended Bob Chesney for the James Madison head coaching position in 2024. At the time, Chesney was coming off a successful run at Holy Cross, but his work at the Division II level had already caught Curt Cignetti’s attention.

“UCLA’s doing a great job too with Bob Chesney who succeeded me at JMU,” he said. “I actually recommended him for that job. Didn’t know him but respected what he had done at the D2 level at Assumption and convinced Jeff Bourne to talk to him and he was doing a great job out there as well.”

Before reaching James Madison, Bob Chesney spent five seasons at Assumption, where he took a struggling program and made it a regular postseason threat. His record told much of the story. He went 44-16 between 2013 and 2017, won two Northeast-10 championships and guided the Greyhounds to three consecutive Division II playoff appearances.

Assumption’s best season under Bob Chesney came in 2017. The team went 11-2 and pushed its way into the Division II quarterfinals. He also picked up NE-10 Coach of the Year twice before moving on to Holy Cross. There, he kept winning, collecting five straight Patriot League titles between 2019 and 2023.

By the time James Madison needed a new coach, Bob Chesney had already built a strong resume far from the big-money programs. He knew how to get teams competing and winning without the spotlight or resources of major-conference football. Curt Cignetti didn’t have a personal connection with him, but the results at Assumption were enough to make him take notice. He just liked what he saw on his coaching resume and pushed the then JMU AD Jeff Bourne to give him a conversation. 

That recommendation eventually opened the door to Bob Chesney’s first FBS head coaching opportunity. And it is not hard to argue with the decision. He inherited a James Madison program that Curt Cignetti had helped establish as a serious FBS contender. The Dukes had moved up from the FCS before the 2022 season, and Cignetti left behind a team with a strong winning culture when he departed for Indiana.

Bob Chesney kept things moving. He went 9-4 in his first season, capped by a Boca Raton Bowl victory over Western Kentucky. In 2025, JMU won the Sun Belt and secured the first College Football Playoff appearance in school history. That success earned him the UCLA job in December 2025. His first season in Los Angeles has been another story altogether.

UCLA had nowhere to go after finishing 3-9 last season. Seven games into 2026, the Bruins haven’t lost once and are sitting inside the national top 10. Bob Chesney has changed the mood around the program in a hurry. Curt Cignetti may have helped him get his shot at JMU, but what happened next was all Chesney.

There is also a neat twist to the story. Curt Cignetti left JMU for Indiana and built the Hoosiers into a national power. Bob Chesney followed him out of Harrisonburg and is now trying to pull off something similar at UCLA. One recommendation helped start that journey. The results are making it look like a very good call.