LAS VEGAS \u2014 Even after a nearly disastrous first half that saw the UCLA football team trailing UNLV by 23 points in the first half, the Bruins still had a chance to even the score late in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
But the deficit was too much to overcome. UCLA\u2019s late rally came up short as the Bruins lost to the Rebels 30-23 at Allegiant Stadium Saturday night. The Bruins are 0-2 for the first time since 2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tale of two halves,\u201d UCLA coach DeShaun Foster said. \u201cFirst half, (we) didn\u2019t really show up the way that we wanted to. Second half, we (were) able to make some plays, but we were still doing some things that we shouldn\u2019t have done and stopped drives and getting in our own way. But it\u2019s something that we can fix.\u201d<\/p>\n
Making his second start for UCLA, Nico Iamaleava showed improvements, but he was intercepted by Aamaris Brown with 52 seconds left, with the Bruins driving.<\/p>\n
Iamaleava, \u201che\u2019s a gamer,\u201d Foster said. \u201cHe\u2019s somebody that \u2013 he wants to make big plays. He\u2019s asking for the ball and asking to be put in certain situations. I love when you have a quarterback that wants to put it on his shoulders and carries the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iamaleava completed 29 of 41 passes for 255 yards with a touchdown, an interception and he added a 30-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter to make it a 10-point deficit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just starts with me,\u201d Iamaleava said. \u201cI (got to) be better coming out. I started off a little slow. \u2026 We (got to) be more disciplined. It was way too many penalties out there, cost us a lot of points.\u201d<\/p>\n
UCLA had 421 total yards of offense and outgained UNLV (351 yards). The Bruins committed 14 penalties for 129 yards and 3 of 13 on third down attempts.<\/p>\n
UCLA got within one score in the fourth quarter with a 33-yard Mateen Bhaghani field goal, which was almost a touchdown when two plays earlier, Iamaleava\u2019s pass was just out of reach of an open Jack Pedersen.<\/p>\n
UNLV (3-0) killed some clock, but it gave UCLA the ball back with 2:19 to play. The Bruins started at the 19, but an illegal hands to the face penalty negated a first-down completion.<\/p>\n
Iamaleava came up with four first-down completions to move the ball inside UNLV territory. On second down, his pass was deflected and Brown snagged it from the air to seal the loss for the Bruins.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made a bad decision throwing it over the middle,\u201d said Iamaleava, who rushed for 59 yards. \u201cI (got to) be better.\u201d<\/p>\n
While UCLA showed adjustments in the second half, hardly anything went right at the start. The Bruins struggled on offense. Penalties and the inability to get off the field on several key third-down plays didn\u2019t help the Bruins on defense.<\/p>\n
UCLA got its first touchdown of the game in the third quarter when it was bailed out on an UNLV pass interference that was going to be an interception and scored two on a 4-yard pass from Iamaleava to Noah Fox Flores to trail 23-10.<\/p>\n
It appeared UCLA would get within one score, but an offensive pass interference on Titus Mokiao-Atimalala took a touchdown off the board and the Bruins elected to kick a 35-yard field goal and trailed 23-13.<\/p>\n
UNLV quarterback Anthony Colandrea threw a 17-yard touchdown pass to take a 30-13 lead early in the fourth quarter, which proved to be the deciding score.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just frustrated because we know that we can execute better than that and we put together two halves like I wish we would have done and those outcomes would be different,\u201d Foster said. \u201cThe situation that we\u2019re in the first half, we didn\u2019t really help ourselves out when it came in the second half and then we finally started to execute, but it still wasn\u2019t enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
The game\u2019s opening drive was a sign of things to come for UCLA\u2019s early troubles. A pass interference penalty on third down, and a missed sack on Colandrea helped the Rebels keep their drive alive to take a 3-0 lead on the drive.<\/p>\n
A facemask penalty and a pass interference penalty on Cole Martin hurt UCLA on UNLV\u2019s next offensive drive and set the Rebels up at the 21, where Colandrea\u2019s touchdown pass to Nick Elksnis put the Bruins behind 10-0 late in the first quarter, and they trailed 23-3 at halftime.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: September 6, 2025 at 9:29 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 Even after a nearly disastrous first half that saw the UCLA football team trailing UNLV…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":206837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[11140,1428,1369,1318,1317,1315,1316,62,56012,56013,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-206972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-big-ten-conference","9":"tag-college-football","10":"tag-college-sports","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-football","14":"tag-ncaafootball","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-ucla-football","17":"tag-ucla-sports","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115161634583502873","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}