Derek Carr, UCLA football’s new special advisor, sees a winner in Bob Chesney
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His NFL playing career is over, but Derek Carr is far from done with football.
UCLA announced this week that it has hired Carr as a special advisor to football coach Bob Chesney, and that the four-time Pro Bowl quarterback will assist with the Bruins’ offensive staff in game-planning strategy.
“Coach Chesney is a leader of men,” said Carr, who was at Dodger Stadium on Monday evening and was on the field before the game. “So many guys get hired just based on scheme. This is a guy who stands up in front of the room and leads.”
It might seem a bit random, Carr joining UCLA’s staff. He played at Fresno State, then with the Raiders in Oakland and Las Vegas before finishing his NFL career in New Orleans. But there’s a connection.
Darrick Yray, UCLA football’s general manager, formerly was an offensive assistant and assistant director of football operations at Fresno State. He and Carr got to know each other there.
After attending his first team meeting at UCLA, Carr texted Yray and said, “You’ve got a real one” in Chesney.
UCLA starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava returns to lead the Bruins’ offense, and the roster around him got quite a makeover during the offseason.
“You can feel his presence,” Carr said of Chesney, hired in December after his rise to coaching prominence at Holy Cross then James Madison. “You can feel the team respond to him. … It wasn’t so much what he said, it was how he said it. He was so demanding of the team, yet so encouraging.
“He can demand, demand, demand, but also love them at the same time, to the point where they’re like, `OK, Coach, whatever you want.’”
Carr played 11 NFL seasons, finishing with 41,245 yards passing and 257 touchdowns. He remains the Raiders’ all-time leader in passing yards, passing touchdowns and completions. He retired in May 2025.
Coaching was always in his plans. His brother, Darren, is head football coach at Bakersfield Christian High, and Derek helped coach the quarterbacks there last season. Their brother, David, the quarterback picked No. 1 overall by the expansion Houston Texans in 2002, is Bakersfield Christian’s offensive coordinator.
“I have so much knowledge and things built up that I just want to give to these kids,” Derek Carr said of his interest in coaching in high school and college. “Just like my brother did for me.
“When I got to high school, I was ahead. When I got to college, I was ahead. When I got to the NFL, I was ahead. Because my brother poured into my life. That’s what I feel I want to do for the next generation, too.”
