UCLA 2025 win total: Greg McElroy outlines Bruins' 5.5 wins mark

The 2025 season is going to be the second for DeShaun Foster leading the UCLA Bruins program. It’s also going to be the second for UCLA in the Big Ten and will potentially see the Bruins take a step forward.

Analyst Greg McElroy broke down the UCLA win total, which is set at 5.5 games, on his show Always College Football. The challenge for the Bruins, as McElroy put it, is that while they’re seemingly improving, the schedule also looks more difficult.

“The win total is 5.5,” Greg McElroy said. “They had five wins in DeShaun Foster’s first season. Pulled off a couple pretty big upsets last year too. So, it wouldn’t surprise me if this team is more competitive than they were just a year ago. I think the schedule might be more difficult, though, going into this season.”

UCLA moved to the Big Ten in 2024 and went 5-7 in Foster’s first season. That included finishing the season with a strong, late-season push. After starting 1-5, UCLA finished the second half with a 4-2 run. That included going 3-6 in conference play for the season. Now, they’re hoping to build on that and become more competitive throughout the season.

“They’ll have New Mexico and Northwestern. Those should be wins for UCLA. Then, you have a handful of losses. Penn State, at Indiana, at Ohio State, and at USC. You’re going to sit there, ‘Well, they can beat USC.’ Sure, they could,” McElroy said. “But right now here in the preseason, I would lean heavily toward the Trojans in that matchup. So, we’ll put that in the L category for now, which means they have to win four of these toss-up games.”

Assuming that UCLA avoids an upset and doesn’t pull off an upset either, McElroy lists six games as a toss-up game. Of those, the Bruins would need to win at least four to go to a bowl and beat that win total of 5.5 games.

“Utah at home, on August 30th. That will be the season opener. At UNLV. They should be able to get UNLV,” McElroy said. “But Dan Mullen and company are going to be a very different outfit than they were just a year ago. That’ll be Week 2. They have to go at Michigan State on October 11th. They have Maryland at home, they have Nebraska at home, and they have Washington at home. Can they win four of those toss-up games? Because if they can, they’ll get back to the postseason and they will cash in that over ticket on the win total.”

Much of the success for UCLA will likely go back to transfer quarterback Nico Iamaleava. He has experience in the SEC and took Tennessee to the College Football Playoff in 2025. Now, however, he finds himself in a new situation trying to learn a new scheme as quickly as possible.