Tim Drevno Promoted, Named UCLA Football's Next Offensive Line Coach

The Bruins have plugged their final position coach opening from within.

Tim Drevno, who spent last season as an offensive analyst, was named UCLA football’s next offensive line coach Friday morning. Drevno is the first of the Bruins’ four new hires this offseason who was promoted internally, although the vast majority of his experience comes from outside of Westwood.

There are three vacancies remaining on coach Chip Kelly’s staff, one week after he signed his four-year extension – offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator and special teams coordinator.

Reports of Drevno joining the staff full time first surfaced earlier in the week, when Bruin Report Online heard that he would become the Bruins' next offensive line coach.

Drevno is partially replacing UCLA’s recently-departed offensive coordinator Justin Frye, who primarily served as offensive line coach since 2018. Frye left to become the offensive line coach at Ohio State earlier in January, dropping the offensive coordinator title but reportedly earning a raise in the process.

The statement the Bruins released Friday morning only pegged Drevno as offensive line coach, though, so if Kelly is going to hire an offensive coordinator for 2022 and beyond, they won’t be splitting offensive line duties this time around.

Drevno has plenty of experience at the Power Five and professional level, after earning his start as a graduate assistant at Cal State Fullerton then picking up full-time gigs at Montana State, UNLV, San Jose State, Idaho and San Diego. Since that run, Drevno was tight ends coach and offensive line coach under Jim Harbaugh at Stanford, became Harbaugh’s offensive line coach with the San Francisco 49ers, took a one-year stint at USC as offensive line coach, then reunited with Harbaugh as offensive line coach and offensive coordinator at Michigan from 2014 to 2017.

Bruin fans may be most familiar with Drevno due to his time as USC’s offensive line coach and run game coordinator from 2018 to 2020, when he was ultimately fired by Clay Helton. The Trojans boasted uncharacteristically poor offensive lines during Drevno’s second stint across town, and he started to build a reputation as a subpar recruiter.

After leaving USC, though, Drevno spent the past year on Kelly’s staff as an analyst, learning the offense that he will now have to directly coach UCLA’s offensive lineman in.

The Bruins are losing three full-time starters from their front lines this offseason, with left guard Paul Grattan out of eligibility and left tackles Sean Rhyan and right tackle Alec Anderson declaring for the 2022 NFL Draft. UCLA returns plenty of experience on the interior line in the form of Sam Marrazzo, Atonio Mafi, Jon Gaines II and Duke Clemens, but they are all heading into what will likely be their final year in Westwood.

In terms of the young talent at his disposal, rising sophomore tackle Garrett DiGiorgio impressed in his one start replacing an injured Anderson, while Benjamin Roy and Thomas Cole were also well-known recruits when they signed on in 2021. Tackle Sam Yoon is the only incoming offensive line recruit of the 2022 cycle, but three 2023 tackles already have offers from the Bruins’ staff, including one that Drevno dealt with himself on Thursday.

Drevno was the second position coach officially hired this week, as Duke quarterback coach and co-offensive coordinator Jeff Faris signed on as the new tight ends coach Wednesday, replacing Derek Sage, who went to become the next offensive coordinator at Nevada. Chad Kuaha’aha’a and Ikaika Malloe were hired to replace defensive line coach Johnny Nansen and outside linebackers coach Jason Kaufusi, respectively, after both of them left to join Jedd Fisch’s staff in Arizona in December.

In addition to replacing the other half of Frye’s title as offensive coordinator, UCLA also has to replace Sage as special teams coordinator and the recently resigned Jerry Azzinaro as defensive coordinator.

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