UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava (9) passes the ball against Utah at the Rose Bowl on Aug. 30, 2025, in Pasadena, California. Credit: Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via TNS
UCLA may be the Big Ten’s favorite football team. The Bruins’ most enticing quality: they are a free win.
2025 has not gone the way fans imagined. After UCLA won four of its final six games last season, most thought that there could be something special about the Head Coach DeShaun Foster era.
Add five-star SEC quarterback, Nico Iamaleava, and Offensive Coordinator, Tino Sun- seri, who took Indiana to its first-ever College Football Playoff, and the expectations in Westwood were the highest they have been in years.
But the Bruins are 0-3 after just three games–their worst start since 2019–with former Head Coach Foster and defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe, a 2024 Broyles Award nominee, gone. The program now sits at the bottom of the Big Ten with no clear path upwards in sight.
Things are bleak in Westwood, and fans and students alike have little hope for the 2025 season and potentially longer.
The team will likely win no more than three games and will instead shift its focus to who UCLA will choose to replace Foster–and what staff the new head honcho will bring with him.
Simply put, 2025 has become a tryout. The new coaching staff will evaluate who should stay and who should go as the program undergoes a top-to-bottom shakeup.
For now, Big Ten fans should see an offense that boasts reliable offensive weapons in the wide receiver trio of sophomore Kwazi Gilmer, junior Mikey Matthews and redshirt senior Titus Mokiao-Atimalala. The pass catchers have yet to see consistent production, but as redshirt sophomore quarterback Nico Iamaleava settles into the system, play should improve.
The offense will also utilize a committee backfield that features junior Jaivian Thomas getting the bulk of the touches, redshirt junior Anthony Woods as the pass-catching and blocking back, and red- shirt senior Jalen Berg- er as the short-yardage, power tailback. Iama- leava will supplement the run game, but all four may struggle be- hind an offensive front that has been unable to create lanes.
The star of the show will be Iamaleava, whom fans expected to take the Rose Bowl by storm but has yet to showcase the expected abilities.
There is no doubt that he can make plays through the air and on the ground and has the arm talent to extend the field. He has, however, struggled to maintain offensive momentum behind an offensive line that forces him out of the pocket, and his accuracy has been inconsistent.
While the offense has yet to click, it is the defense that will ultimately be the Bruins’ Achilles heel.
They have been outscored 108-43 and conceded 1,293 offensive yards. After losing to the NFL linebackers Kain Medrano, Carson Schwesinger and Oluwafemi Oladejo, and defensive lineman Jay Toia, many knew the defense would not be what it was.
But no one expected this.
The Bruin run defense has been carved through game after game, and it lacks the firepower and personnel to sack quarterbacks and force turnovers.
Expect Big Ten teams to score–and to do so often–when they face the Bruins
Connor Dullinger, sports editor | Daily Bruin
