UCLA finds identity in upset of Penn State

Pasadena, CA (News4usOnline) – The script was already written. Penn State chose the option to adapt the screenplay. The Nittany Lions were playing a UCLA Bruins football team that was winless, losing its four games of the season. 

The Bruins are winless no more after posting a stunning 42-37 win against the No. 7 Nittany Lions.

“College football is crazy in multiple ways,” UCLA interim head coach Tim Skipper said. “You just take whatever happens each day and you keep on striving to stay on the rise. I’m a passionate, emotional, energetic type guy, and that’s what I bring every single day.”

“You never have a bad day unless you declare it a bad day. Every day is a good day if you want it to be good. Stay positive, figure out solutions, and you keep on rolling. Staying on the rise is a big thing to me, and that is what we have been doing,” Skipper added.

Just how unlikely was this win by UCLA? The Bruins fired their head coach after Game 3. DeShaun Foster lasted just 15 games as the Bruins head coach. In the Bruins’ first three games this season, the offense looked stagnant and the defensive unit had the appeal of a rudderless ship.  

The Bruins lacked identity under Foster. They may have found one through the energetic Skipper. UCLA was aggressive in its play-calling in all three phases against Penn State: defense, offense and special teams. 

“I’d love to take a lot of credit,” Skipper remarked. “I think what we were trying to do was get a game plan together where the guys could feel confident, that no matter what look they gave us, that we know exactly who we’re blocking and what we were doing at all times. We know that with how special they are on defense and how special they are as a team, that we were going to have to do different things to be able to try to throw them off. I thought our guys just went out and executed the game plan as well as we possibly could. It’s just one of those days, and hopefully we’ve got more of these days coming.”

By the time the two teams went into the locker room for their halftime break, UCLA was up, 27-7. 

“Obviously, we did not handle last week’s loss well,” Penn State head coach James Franklin said during his postgame press conference. “We also lost some players in that game during the week, and then everything else. The travel, everything else.”

Franklin continued, “We did not come out with the right energy to start the game, and before you know it obviously they get a touchdown drive and an onside kick, and now you’re fighting. They gained confidence, and we’re fighting for the next three quarters. That’s my responsibility, and I didn’t get it done.”

The Nittany Lions was ripe for the upset because they themselves had just absorbed their first defeat of the season to the Oregon Ducks a week earlier.  The Oct. 4 meeting between Penn State and UCLA felt like a trap game for the Nittany Lions. 

UCLA came into the game as a team wandering through the wilderness, not sure which direction to turn to after a lot of chaos at the beginning to their season. Coming into the 2025 college football season, Penn State was the favorite to win the Big Ten Conference. 

Well, two straight losses to two former Pac-12 members in Oregon and UCLA may have shaken the tree to those thoughts. 

It’s still early in conference play, but the Nittany Lions have zero to very little wiggle room to lose another game and compete for the conference championship, let alone participate in the College Football Playoff.

The challenge for Penn State now is for the team to re-gain its focus, Franklin said.    

“We have to tune out all the outside noise,” Franklin said in his postgame press conference remarks. “I thought our guys worked hard at doing that last week, but obviously not well enough. We have to stick together; the coaches, the players in the locker room; offense, defense, the special teams. The reality is we didn’t play well enough in all three facets to win the game, and there’s going to be a lot out there to divide, divide, divide, and we have to tune all that out and stick together. I think we’ll do that; it’s not going to be easy but I think we’ll do that.”