Report: Former UCLA interim coach Tim Skipper, Cal Poly agree to five-year deal as head coach

Former UCLA interim head coach Tim Skipper has agreed to a five-year deal to become the head coach at Cal Poly, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reports.

Skipper, who was brought on this season at UCLA as a special assistant to head coach DeShaun Foster, was elevated to interim head coach following Foster’s firing. Under Skipper, the Bruins went 3-6 with a win over then-No. 7 ranked Penn State.

Source: Former UCLA interim coach Tim Skipper has agreed to a five-year deal to be the head coach at Cal Poly. Skipper led UCLA to wins over Penn State, Michigan State and Maryland as UCLA's interim and led Fresno State to a bowl last year as that school's interim. pic.twitter.com/LObRD68g1B

— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) December 3, 2025

“It went fast,” Skipper said about his journey at UCLA following the Bruins’ season-ending 29-10 loss to No. 17 USC last Saturday. “That’s all I’ll say. I can’t believe we’re at the end already. It was like I blinked when we were playing Northwestern at the beginning of this thing. But, I think the whole locker room (coaches and me included) learned that if you fight, you can get yourself out of it.”

“I liked the way the guys kept their minds right the whole entire time. There’s a lot of twists and turns and things you have to do, but I realized I can make it without sleeping much. I can say that. I’m kinda excited to have a clear mind and take the season in and think forward to what I’ll do with my career and everyone else’s careers and stuff like that.”

Skipper was rumored to have been a candidate to fill the UCLA opening, but the program announced that it was hiring James Madison head coach Bob Chesney on Monday.

Although he has been coaching since 2001, Cal Poly will mark Skipper’s first ever full-time head coaching job. He has previously been the interim head coach at Fresno State and UCLA, but he will now have full reign of the Cal Poly program. The Mustangs are an FCS program from the Big Sky Conference, which fired head coach Paul Wulff following a disappointing 4-8 season.

The program has been down in the dumps for a little while, as it hasn’t enjoyed a record over .500 since 2016, when it went 7-5 and was eliminated in the First Round of the FCS Playoffs. Since then, it is a combined 23-69 over the past nine seasons. It will be quite the challenge for Skipper to turn around, but he is a proven steady hand with a track record to back it up.