PASADENA– It was a gorgeous Chamber of Commerce night at the iconic Rose Bowl on Saturday, September 19 to open up the BIG 10 season. It was the Bruins standout performance of the young season surviving a wild shootout, pervailing 52-38.
UCLA improves to 3-0 overall on the season and 1-0 in Big Ten Conference play. A terrific start to the Bob Chesney era.
UCLA eclipsed 50 points and improved to 3-0 for the first time since 2023, when it accomplished both in a 59-7 home win against North Carolina Central.
The Bruins scored on each of their first three drives and put the game out of reach in the second half, scoring 14 points in each of the final two quarters.
Senior UCLA Quarterback Nico Iamaleava has truly proven his leadership, in post game interviews he has been highly critical of his play. He certainly shined on this night.
His maturity speaks volumes, setting the tone for what he expects from himself and the Bruins program as a whole. Nico is leader who continues to improve.
Last night, he had his best game of the season. Iamaleava found wide receiver Semaj Morgan for a pair of touchdowns in the first quarter to get momentum rolling in the Bruins’ favor early in the game.
Nico Iamaleava set a UCLA career high with 276 passing yards. He completed 19 of 31 passes and tossed three touchdowns with no interceptions. Semaj Morgan reeled in two of the touchdowns, setting another career high.
Iamaleava is the leader of the Bruins, however, UCLA’s Running Back Wayne Knight is not only the best player on the Bruins roster, Knight is one of the best Running Backs in College football.
Knight finished with 177 rushing yards for the game. Anthony Woods and Jaivian Thomas each added a rushing touchdown. In the process, becoming the first UCLA player to record two or more non-passing touchdowns in three consecutive games since Maurice Jones-Drew in 2005.
Jones-Drew was UCLA’s honorary captain Saturday.
The Bruins piled up 645 yards of total offense, including 369 on the ground.
Defensively, there is room for improvement as Purdue has a wonderful quarterback, as well as a potent offense.
The Boilermakers torched them throughout the game for 488 total yards and the 38 points. Other than senior linebacker Sammy Omosigho, the Bruins defense struggled to make plays against Purdue for most of the game, but senior defensive back Rodrickp p p pPleasant made one of the best plays of the game with an interception in the redzone to help the Bruins close out the game.
The Bruins penalties have been a problem and they weren’t fixed in their first conference match of the season. UCLA had 12 penalties for 103 yards. They need to be cleaned up if UCLA wants to have any chance at winning games against some of the Big Ten’s better opponents, let alone winning a conference title.
The defense will need to figure things out with games against Maryland and Oregon in the coming weeks.
One thing that certainly helped the Bruins was the crowd. UCLA students were given free bus rides back and forth from the Pauley Pavilion campus, and free tickets to enter the game. This definitely made for a more boisterous crowd which cheered on the Bruins to victory.
UCLA returns to action on Saturday, Sept. 26, traveling to Maryland for a 10:30 a.m. PT matchup.
