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Nico Iamaleava breaks down what has gone wrong for UCLA in start to the season

On3 imageby: Dan Morrison09/25/25dan_morrison96
Nico Iamaleava, UCLA
Sep 12, 2025; Pasadena, California, USA; UCLA Bruins quarterback Nico Iamaleava (9) looks to pass during the first quarter against the New Mexico Lobos at Rose Bowl. Mandatory Credit: Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images

The 2025 season went sideways quickly for the UCLA Bruins. That led to the firing of head coach DeShaun Foster after just three games, and it left a team searching for answers in the aftermath.

Star quarterback Nico Iamaleava was supposed to be a key player who helped boost UCLA this season. The transfer from Tennessee did help take his previous school to the College Football Playoff, after all. That hasn’t happened yet, though.

Ahead of UCLA’s Week 5 matchup against Northwestern, Iamaleava addressed the media. There, he blamed self-inflicted mistakes and struggling to play clean games on why the Bruins have struggled in the early part of the season.

“Just as a whole, we’ve got to play cleaner games,” Iamaleava said. “Penalties are going through the roof, man. I think just in situations, we shoot ourselves in the foot a lot. That has cost us some big time in games to give us a chance to go and win.”

UCLA opened the season with a home loss to Utah, losing 43-10. Since then, the Bruins have dropped two more games to Mountain West opponents, going down to UNLV 30-23 and New Mexico 35-10. That’s a combined 109-43 through three games. Since then, Foster was replaced with Tim Skipper as the team’s interim head coach and they went on a bye week to try and hit the reset button.

In that time, UCLA has certainly struggled with those self-inflicted wounds. The Bruins are currently 136th out of 136 teams nationally in penalties. That’s on 91.7 penalty yards per game. UCLA is also 107th in turnover margin at -0.67 per game. Given all of that, it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that the Bruins are just 132nd in scoring offense, averaging 14.3 points per game. So, Iamaleava does have a point that those self-inflicted wounds are having their impact on the team.

For his own part, Iamaleava is completing 63.9% of his passes for 608 yards, three touchdowns, and three interceptions. He’s also rushing for 139 yards and another touchdown. That’s 16th in the Big Ten in passing yards and 15th in passing touchdowns.

It’s undeniably been a rough start to the season for UCLA. At the same time, the season isn’t over yet, and the Bruins still have Big Ten play to look forward to. That begins on Saturday, September 27th, with their road trip to Northwestern. Kickoff is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. EST.