From JUCO to UCLA: Leland Smith's Winding College Football Career

Leland Smith almost wound up at UCLA three years ago. The rangy wide receiver had just completed his first and final season at Fullerton College. He earned JUCO All-America honors and drew interest from the Bruins, led by then-head coach Chip Kelly.

Smith said his move to Westwood ultimately fell through — Kelly resigned in the spring of 2024. But Smith wrote in his notes at the time that UCLA was his dream school.

Now onto his fourth team — fifth if you count a short-lived tenure as a walk-on at TCU — Smith has seen that dream through. He transferred to UCLA in January to play for new head coach Bob Chesney. Smith projects to be a key cog in what could be an explosive Bruins offense. And he’s appreciative of the many steps it took to get to this point.

“Definitely been a whirlwind of a process,” Smith told Athlon Sports. “I know it can look crazy from the outside looking in from JUCO to Purdue to San Jose [State] to here, where I’m at now, and just being able to embrace all those different changes and just roll with the ebbs and flows and roll with the punches of this entire college football landscape.”

Smith’s initial meeting with Bruins wide receivers coach Colin Lockett sold him on UCLA. Smith valued Lockett’s perspective, since he has coached wide receivers and defensive backs. And he said he learned more in their 30-minute conversation than he had in much of his time playing college football.

Smith’s prior interest in playing for UCLA was also a factor. And the winning culture Chesney had brought across the country from James Madison, which he led to the College Football Playoff in 2025, was something Smith wanted to join after back-to-back losing seasons at Purdue and San Jose State.

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“I’ve been in places in which you play the game and your biggest relationships are your OC [offensive coordinator] or your position coach and your head coach is just there in some way, shape or form, a figurehead,” Smith said. “And somehow coach Chesney is in the middle of every drill but for every position. Not sure how he does it.”

It’s become a meme in the UCLA community that Chesney is somehow everywhere. The Bruins have even leaned into the idea that Chesney has clones running around campus.

Chesney has drawn comparisons to Curt Cignetti, his predecessor at JMU who took over a struggling Big Ten team in Indiana and led it to a national championship two years later. There seems to be optimism around the Bruins for the first time in a long time, though no one is quite ready to pick UCLA to make the College Football Playoff.

But if the Bruins are to take a step forward — specifically on offense — Smith is sure to be a big part of that effort. He had 688 yards and three touchdowns on 43 catches a season ago for the Spartans. That includes four games with 100-plus yards, including one against Stanford, a Power 4 opponent.

At 6-foot-4 with blazing speed, Smith projects to see time at X-receiver in Chesney’s offense. And if he lives up to his billing, he’ll add an element that the Bruins were missing last season.

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Quarterback Nico Iamaleava is one of a handful of returning starters on offense for the Bruins — and that turnover is probably a good thing. UCLA averaged the second-fewest points per game in the Big Ten. That’s not all on Iamaleava, who led the No. 2 scoring offense in the SEC at Tennessee as a freshman in 2024 before he transferred.

Smith said Iamaleava has one of the best arms that he’s seen. And he summed up his expectation for the Bruins’ offense with one word: “explosive.”

Ahead of his first year at UCLA, Smith is staying busy off the field with an NIL deal with World’s Finest Chocolate. The partnership is personal for Smith, who sold chocolate as a kid in Houston to participate in youth choir. LSU running back Harlem Berry is also participating in World’s Finest Chocolate’s “Let Them Reign” campaign.

“That was my first introduction to sales of any sort, and so it’s something that I’ve carried with me,” Smith said. “Even to today, ultimately not even worried about selling the product but really selling yourself.”

Smith said he’s frugal with the money he makes from NIL deals and invests most of it. He said his experience in junior college taught him what it was like to go without, but now he’s in a better position to leverage his brand and sell himself.

Smith is a talented orator with a history in public speaking and debate. He also preaches at UCLA’s campus ministry. Law school might be in his future after football — but not just to put those skills to use arguing in a courtroom. He recognizes the need for legal help in his life and those around him and views it as a way to remove the middleman.

But before that, he has a senior season to play. The Bruins start their season on Sept. 5 against Cal. And a few weeks later, there’s a revenge game on deck for Smith against Purdue. He didn’t let on that any game stands out more than the next. But he’s focused on playing into December. If UCLA makes it back to a bowl game this season, it would be their first trip since 2023, when Smith first set his sights on playing at the Rose Bowl.