UCLA first-year head coach DeShaun Foster announced his football recruiting staff in a statement released Tuesday.
Butler Benton oversees the operation as the general manager of recruiting and personnel, Chris Carter is his assistant GM and Stacey Ford takes over as director of player personnel.
“The UCLA brand is a constant, but college football recruiting has evolved and will continue to do so every day,” Foster said in the statement. “Butler, Chris and Stacey bring years of experience from around the country that will help us build and enhance relationships while staying a step ahead of that next change. The process of finding the right young men to wear those four letters never ends and we are fortunate to have this staff in place.”
Benton, who has spent a decade working at the Division I level, was most recently an assistant athletic director for player personnel at Notre Dame. He handled roster management and evaluation, in addition to management of recruiting and scouting.
Benton also served in a similar GM role at Arkansas for two seasons.
Carter worked at rival USC as the director of player development. A former fifth-round NFL draft pick who spent seven years in the league, he also spent time as a recruiting analyst at Oklahoma.
Ford spent the past two seasons as the director of recruiting at Washington State. It is a return to Southern California after previous coaching stops on the high school level at Downey-Warren and Los Angeles-Cathedral.
Ford’s ties could be a boon in the Bruins’ pursuit of 2025 four-star Warren quarterback Madden Iamaleava, who currently has UCLA and Nebraska in his top two schools.
The moves come after Darren Uscher, who initially left Oregon to be UCLA’s executive director of recruiting in late January, returned to Eugene after former Bruins head coach Chip Kelly left to be the Ohio State offensive coordinator.
Ford assumes the role previously held by Ethan Young, who was most known on social media for signaling recruiting commitments without specifically naming the players.
