It was exactly one week ago UCLA football players learned Chip Kelly, after six seasons in Westwood, was leaving to be the offensive coordinator at Ohio State.

The week before that, the Bruins thought they had lost running backs and associate head coach DeShaun Foster to the Las Vegas Raiders.

Players were trying their best to block out the events transpiring on social media, with Kelly flirting with at least three NFL franchises along the way as the inevitability of an exit grew with each report.

Bruins quarterback Ethan Garbers eventually had to put his phone away once Kelly’s departure was official last Friday.

“My phone was blowing up, I was getting text messages,” Garbers recalled. “I decided to turn off my phone for like five or six hours, just to kind of think about it and decompress.”

UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond, after vetting around 20 candidates and conducting 11 official interviews, then reached an agreement with Foster to return and all that was left was to inform the players Monday.

UCLA linebacker Kain Medrano was unsure what to think until he walked into the team meeting and saw Jarmond, executive senior associate athletic director Josh Rebholz and cameras everywhere. Something was up, Medrano thought, “but I didn’t think it was gonna be Fost.”

“I didn’t know who it was gonna be,” Medrano said. “I didn’t have any names in mind, to be honest with you.”

Running back T.J. Harden remembers how his heart was racing, wanting for Jarmond to finish speaking and make the reveal already.

“Like, speed this up, man,” Harden said.

As soon as Foster turned the corner, the room erupted and players swarmed the man they pleaded for on social media during the interview process.