How Did These UCLA Transfers Perform in 2024? Part 6

The 2025 college football season is looming which means UCLA Bruins fans will finally get their first look at some of the Bruins' incoming transfers from the offseason.

DeShaun Foster went to work in the transfer portal in his first full offseason as Westwood's head coach and lured 29 transfers to cultivate the 20th-ranked transfer class in the nation on 247Sports' transfer ranking board.

In this new UCLA Bruins on SI series, we're going to dive into each transfer and how they did last season, including a few evaluations from national college football analysts.

In part six, we look at some solid defensive additions -- Kechaun Bennett, Anthony Jones and Key Lawrence.

Kechaun Bennett, Redshirt Senior TR Edge, Michigan Wolverines Bennett is one of the two defensive transfers from the state of Michigan on this list, and he is primed to make a decent impact in his final grad season.

He played 13 games in Ann Arbor last season and picked up four tackles, a quarterback hurry and a blocked kick in 27 defensive snaps.

"You can probably make an argument that UCLA did pretty well in the transfer portal at just about every position -- except at the edge.

If it weren't such a vastly important position for the defense, we wouldn't be sounding the alarm.

But we're sounding the alarm.

We've seen how UCLA's defenses are with a good pass rush -- and how they aren't with a poor pass rush.

With Bennett, UCLA is pretty much taking a Hail Mary here.

Perhaps it's one of those John Barnes stories -- and Bennett finally comes into his own after four seasons at Michigan and is capable of supplying a pass rush at UCLA in 2025.

Heck, if he's just serviceable and is solid in the defensive end rotation that'd be a win.

There really isn't much of a downside to taking Bennett and, if he becomes a significant contributor as a pass rusher, it could be key to UCLA having a good defense in 2025 -- and it will look like a stroke of scouting genius and another great developmental coup for the UCLA defensive staff and defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe." -- Bruins Report Online Staff Anthony Jones, Redshirt Junior TR Edge, Michigan State Spartans Jones is a well-traveled prospect.

With stops at Washington, Oregon, Texas, Indiana, Oregon State and Michigan State, the hope is he finds a home in Westwood.

Edge is an important position for UCLA ahead of the season and Jones is a great addition to an overhauled depth.

"UCLA has added three transfer edge rushers this offseason in Jones, Kechaun Bennett, and Nico Davillier.

The three have produced four total sacks across 10 combined seasons of football.

It could work out that one or two or all of them produce at a higher level for UCLA than they have shown in the past, but the reality is that this is going to be a very difficult job for Ikaika Malloe and Jethro Franklin -- producing a base pass rush from a collection of guys who have shown little demonstrated ability to effectively rush the passer.

It's the biggest question mark on the roster entering next year, and unfortunately, the Bruins have not been able to answer it with proven commodities.

Perhaps someone emerges, or one of these transfers ends up being a home run.

But entering the offseason, the base pass rush is easily the biggest concern on the defense." -- Bruin Report Online Staff Key Lawrence, Redshirt Senior TR S, Ole Miss Rebels Lawrence is projected to start at box safety for the Bruins and is a former highly-touted four-star high school recruit.

Lawrence, if anything, brings experience and depth to the Bruins' secondary.

"Starter-level safeties were a huge need for UCLA and with Lawrence joining Bryon Threats, that is two experienced, senior safeties the Bruins will be able to bring in to play right away.

BRO projects him as a Free Safety and to compete with Croix Stewart, who will be a redshirt junior this fall.

With Lawrence holding plenty of playing experience, the Bruins could plug him in there if Stewart doesn't run away with the job.

And as with Threats, he's another player that Martin honed in on from the jump along with defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe" -- Bruin Report Online Staff Ensure you follow on X (Twitter) @UCLAInsideronSI and @cmorenoNBA and never miss another edition to this new series! Please let us know your thoughts on this when you like our Facebook page WHEN YOU CLICK RIGHT HERE ..

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