Greg McElroy explains why UCLA has work to do despite adding Nico Iamaleava

UCLA underwent quite the offseason overhaul entering its second season under Deshaun Foster. It’s now a question of what the Bruins could look like this year, especially after making maybe the highest-profile addition of the offseason with the transfer of former Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava.

Greg McElroy recently tiered that conference during an episode of ‘Always College Football.’ The Bruins ended up in the fifth and final tier, titled as “Work To Do,” along with Rutgers, Maryland, Purdue, and Northwestern, coming off a finish of 5-7 overall a season ago.

“If you look at last year, first six games? Not good at all. Last six games? There was a lot of growth on, really, kind of, both sides of the ball,” McElroy said. “You pick off three wins against bowl teams in Rutgers, Nebraska, and Iowa. You narrowly (lose) against ‘SC.

“There’s a lot of things to kind of like about what could be heading for UCLA.”

Again, Foster’s tenure did not open well, albeit against some very difficult competition, as the Bruins lost five straight after narrowly winning their opener. However, UCLA did close out the season with a 4-2 record down the stretch.

That said, the Bruins are essentially an all-new team, namely on defense this fall in LA. That’s going to put even more of an emphasis on Iamaleava, the No. 2 overall transfer who returned to the West Coast following his headline-making departure this spring from Tennessee after helping to take them to the College Football Playoff, who’ll have to play well with this roster.

“New offensive coordinator in Tino Sunseri. I absolutely love this hire. I love that they went out and got Nico Iamaleava,” McElroy continued. “Nico Iamaleava obviously did an amazing job at times last year for Tennessee, but there are also a lot of things that he missed. He’s got to take a big step this year because the supporting cast is one that I’m not super familiar with – a lot of new faces, a lot of new pieces.

“And then, defensively, lose some of their best players from a year ago.”

The problem for UCLA, though, is that the slate is no easier this season. Two non-conference games open the schedule as matchups that could immediately put them at 0-2 before conference games with seven of their nine being against teams in tiers ahead of them per McElroy, including six of those seven against teams that McElroy has in contention to either make it into or win the CFP.

“The schedule is also a beast – Penn State, at Ohio State, at USC, Utah in the non-conference, Nebraska, Washington, at Indiana. The schedule is really, really difficult,” said McElroy. “And don’t lose sight of the game at UNLV on September 6th. That could be a much tougher game than people probably want to point to right now.”

Iamalavea alone is going to bring national attention to their season in Hollywood. Still, what it’ll actually end up being remains to be seen in Los Angeles.