UCLA shocks Penn State

Pasadena, CA (News4usOnline) – The UCLA Bruins proved to Penn State and the rest of the college football world that on any given day, no matter how mighty you are, you can get beat. The Bruins came into this Big Ten Conference matchup winless in their first four games.   

Penn State was highly regarded and considered one of the best teams in college football with a No. 7 ranking. By the sureness of its 43-37 nail-biting, upset win at the Rose Bowl Stadium, UCLA may have knocked Penn State from that hierarchy perch for the rest of the season.   

“We didn’t lose belief in ourselves, even when outsiders were losing belief in us, and reasonably so,” UCLA redshirt senior defensive lineman Gary Smith III said. “I can’t blame anybody for doing so. But at the same time, we just brought it every day, we knew what we could do, and today we finally got to display it.”

The Bruins’ first victory of the season figures to shake up the college football universe.  

Under former head coach Deshaun Foster, UCLA’s offense sputtered and lacked consistency. In interim head coach Tim Skipper’s home debut as the person in charge of the football program, the Bruins seemed to have re-invented themselves. 

UCLA didn’t waste time, scoring on the game’s opening series and not looking back. The Bruins’ lead ballooned from 7-0 to 27-7 at the intermission. The Nittany Lions appeared to be dazed and shocked. They were dominated on both sides of the ball. 

Fueling UCLA’s offensive surge was quarterback Nico Iamaleava. Iamaleava rushed for 128 yards and three touchdowns. He also accounted for 166 yards and two touchdowns through the air. 

“Big-time players make big-time plays, and that’s what he did out there,” Skipper said of Iamaleava’s performance. “There are times when we have drop-back passes and nobody is open. And he just takes off, he makes a guy miss and it springs an explosive run. He’s a player, he’s a football player.” 

Skipper continued, “It doesn’t matter what the play call is, you always have to account for him. He rises to the occasion; that’s the thing I love about him. There’s no pressure too big for him. He applies pressure to defenses. I am happy for him, he’s our leader of the team. He was the number one vote getter for captains, and I love that kid and appreciate him so much.”

In total, that’s five touchdowns and nearly 300 (294) yards in total offense Iamaleava accumulated by himself. Iamaleava was just happy that the Bruins’ offense finally clicked in every aspect.  

“Man, it feels great,” Iamaleava said. “We finally put it all together on the offensive side of the ball. We were able to score some points and come out victorious. The defense did a great job holding them down on the last drive.”

Skipper said afterward that UCLA’s fast start is something that can be expected from the Bruins. 

“We wanted to control the game,” Skipper said. “That’s why we wanted to run the ball, and it all starts with the big boys up front. They have to control the line of scrimmage. They were creating openings. We know their D-line and linebackers are really, really good, so we had to put bodies on those guys. 

“We just wanted to control it one play at a time, just take it one play at a time, and that’s exactly what we did. We actually have never talked about not leading for a game; somebody told me about it, that’s how I knew. We never talked about it or anything; we just went out there and played ball today. We just went out there and took the lead, and fortunately for us, we kept it.” 

There were a lot of moving parts in this game. First, UCLA jumping out to its big lead allowed the Bruins to play in cruise control for the rest of the way. Penn State had something to say about that, scoring two touchdowns in the blink of an eye early in the third quarter to cut the Bruins’ advantage to just 27-21. 

But for the first time this season, UCLA found some backbone to fight back. UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava and his teammates responded with a touchdown drive of their own. 

The back-and-forth tug-of-war played out all the way until near the end of the fourth quarter, when the Bruins stopped Penn State on a fourth-and-two at the 10-yard line. 

“Obviously, it was a QB power read, where we had an opportunity to get the ball on the edge, divide the defense, get the quarterback downhill, based on the read,” Penn State head coach James Franklin said about the play that essentially locked up the game for the Bruins. “ They brought edge pressure, which we knew was coming – they beat the block, got penetration, and we weren’t able to get around.”

Featured Image: Pasadena, CA – Quarterback Nico Iamaleava and the UCLA Bruins defeated the Penn State Nittany Lions in a Big Ten Conference college football game played at the Rose Bowl Stadium on Oct. 4, 2025. Iamaleava accounted for five touchdowns in UCLA’s 42-37 win. Photo credit: Dennis J. Freeman / News4usOnline