Saturday felt familiar for fans in Pasadena.
A slow start, a late push and a final score that looked closer than the game ever felt have become the three pillars of the Bruins’ 2025 mantra, and Saturday only corroborated the sentiment.
A 0-4 start to the season was forgotten as quickly as it appeared after UCLA football won three in a row. But just three weeks after being one game away from a .500 record, the Bruins are back to square one, on the brink of a second three-game losing streak and the hopes of a bowl game hanging in the balance.
And the deciding factor for the virtual end to UCLA’s season restoration: No. 1 Ohio State in a night game at the “Shoe.”
But while UCLA football did not come away with the desired result against Nebraska, redshirt senior running back Anthony Frias II – who finished with nine receiving yards, good for one touchdown – said he is finding his rhythm in UCLA’s evolving offense.
As much as his own touchdown mattered, his eyes were on what redshirt sophomore quarterback Nico Iamaleava continued bringing to the table.
“He’s a dog. He doesn’t just love being a quarterback – he loves playing football,” Frias said. “He’ll do things most quarterbacks in the country aren’t willing to do.”
Iamaleava notched two touchdowns and threw for 191 yards Saturday, finding success on 17-of -5 passes across the affair. And while Iamaleava kept the offense moving, it was a defensive gamble that flipped momentum late in the half.
But what stood out from the affair was Iamaleava’s rushing ability. The signal caller finished with 86 yards on the ground, including multiple scrambles that converted third-and-mediums and third-and-longs, allowing the UCLA offense to extend drives, work its way down the field and put points on the board.
“You see quarterbacks that can run and everything like that, and they’re usually thicker, muscled-up guys. There goes the first tall, skinny dude that I know that will lower the pads on you and is not afraid. He’s always going to be forward and getting yards,” said interim head coach Tim Skipper. “I mean, he’s got skinny legs and little, skinny arms but has no fear at all.”
But Iamaleava’s legs were not the only thing that shone through the darkness of Skipper’s first back-to-back defeats of his tenure at the Bruin helm.
Late in the first half against Nebraska, redshirt senior defensive lineman Jacob Busic picked up a crucial first down on a fake punt deep in UCLA territory.
“They told me, ‘Just fall forward,’” Busic said. “When in doubt, just fall forward.”
And it worked.
But now, Busic is back to what he typically does: applying heat to the quarterback – something the Bruins have struggled with all season.
The Bruins have gone three consecutive games without a sack, notching only six across their nine games, something that won’t fly against an offensive powerhouse such as No. 1 Ohio State.
UCLA ranks last in the Big Ten and dead last out of all DI teams in sacks.
“We’ve got to earn the right to rush the passer,” Busic said. “That means stopping the run and getting them into third and long.”
The Bruins have allowed an average of 181.7 rushing yards per game over their last three matchups while Ohio State enters averaging 415.5 total yards and 32.1 points per game – marks that rank 36th and 26th in the nation, respectively.
Busic said the defense’s focus this week is on everyone doing their own part.
And part of everyone doing their own part is keeping teams from earning third-and-shorts, tackling players at or before the line of scrimmage, preventing the sticks from moving and forcing opposing offenses to take shots down the field in third-and-long scenarios – situations where the Bruin pass rush can thrive.
“We’re not getting to third and longs. We’re getting to third and shorts,” Skipper said. “When it’s third down and it’s third and short, it’s hard to live that way. So we’re going to have to win first and second down, create some third and longs, and then we can go to work.”
Skipper’s message after two straight losses is clear: stop thinking, start playing.
Central to the message to his squad is the Bruins’ other season mantras: starting fast and straining, epitomizing the need to come out the gates firing, and avoiding starting flat, and the necessity of persisting through arduous obstacles when things get tough.
“We’ve got to start fast,” Skipper said. “That’s been the story – we dig ourselves a hole early and spend the rest of the game trying to climb out.”
UCLA matched Nebraska almost identically in a majority of stats: total yards, time of possession and even turnovers. But the Cornhuskers notched three touchdowns on their first three possessions while the Bruins sputtered out the gate for the third consecutive contest – turning the ball over on fourth down and missing a field goal on two of the three offensive possessions.
With three regular-season games left, starting fast is not just a goal – it is survival.
The Bruins need three wins to reach bowl eligibility, and facing the top-ranked Buckeyes might prove to be their toughest challenge yet.
“We’re not changing who we are,” Skipper said. “We just have to start better and finish stronger.”
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