When DeShaun Foster became UCLA football head coach ahead of the 2024 season, he immediately installed personal tenets, a mantra he wanted his Bruins to follow:<\/p>\n
\u201cD.R.E.,\u201d Foster emphasized across numerous interviews in his first year in charge of the program.<\/p>\n
The acronym stands for discipline, respect, and enthusiasm \u2014 a mini, personal version of John Wooden\u2019s Pyramid of Success for Foster\u2019s football team to focus on.<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s hearsay to debate the pitfalls of respect and enthusiasm, there was a clear lack of discipline from UCLA football in its 30-23 loss to UNLV in Las Vegas on Saturday night, a defeat that sent the Bruins stumbling into an 0-2 record for the first time since 2019.<\/p>\n
UCLA drew a flag from the officials at Allegiant Stadium 14 times for 129 yards, generating the most penalties by a Bruins squad in more than a decade. The Bruins\u2019 14 penalties are the most since their 2014 Alamo Bowl victory over Kansas State, in which UCLA drew 15 penalties during former coach Jim Mora\u2019s third season in Westwood.<\/p>\n
Foster, who said that \u201cwe were close\u201d in response to UCLA\u2019s week-one defeat to Utah, pointed to discipline as a reason the Bruins weren\u2019t so \u2018close\u2019 on Saturday, especially in a first half where UCLA came close to laying a goose egg before a last-gasp field goal to put three points on the board.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust being undisciplined,\u201d Foster told reporters after the game when asked about penalties. \u201cYou can get baited into a situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cThere\u2019s going to be some high moments when your energy is \u2014 you\u2019re flying off the handle, but you\u2019ve still got to maintain composure. We just didn\u2019t do that in certain situations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penalties wiped away plenty of big plays for the Bruins. In the third quarter, while at the two-yard line, redshirt sophomore quarterback Nico Iamaleava \u2014 finding his groove in second-half drives in which he tallied 196 of his 255 passing yards \u2014 connected with sophomore wide receiver Kwazi Gilmer for a third-down touchdown.<\/p>\n
Gilmer was already celebrating what could have been his first touchdown of the season in the end zone, looking directly into the CBS Sports Network cameras, dancing with his teammates.<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-2 wideout, who grabbed eight catches for 87 yards (one yard short of his career-high), looked over his shoulder moments later. Gilmer sighed and jogged back to the line of scrimmage \u2014 a LOS that would soon become the 17-yard line after redshirt senior wide receiver Titus Mokiao-Atimalala earned himself an offensive pass interference penalty, erasing the touchdown.<\/p>\n
One incomplete pass later, Foster was forced to settle, junior kicker Mateen Bhaghani smacking the ball through the uprights for one of his three field goals (3-for-3) Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to be more disciplined,\u2019 Iamaleava told reporters after the game. \u201cThere were too many penalties out there that cost us points. Man, it was just crucial penalties that we felt that we could have finished off with seven on a lot of those drives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Redshirt junior offensive lineman Julian Armella drew two 10-plus yard penalties, one of which was an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that shrunk a 20-yard gain from running back Anthony Woods into seven yards. Officials called Armella for a hands-to-the-face penalty in the fourth quarter, once again reducing a large run \u2014 this time 19 yards from Jalen Berger \u2014 into a six-yard gain.<\/p>\n
Redshirt junior center Sam Yoon drew a false start penalty. Redshirt senior Garrett DiGiorgio \u2014 who moved from right tackle to left tackle mid-game when Reuben Unije entered for Courtland Ford \u2014 picked up one holding and one false-start penalty.<\/p>\n
Five of the Bruins\u2019 eight offensive penalties came from the offensive line on Saturday. UCLA\u2019s defense collected six penalties, four of which were for 10 or more yards.<\/p>\n
Despite its faults in the penalty column, the Bruins slowly began to boast some offensive consistency, storming back from a 23-0 deficit to fall a few penalties and converted drives short in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
The Bruins even recorded four 20-plus yard rushes, a week after failing to record a play greater than 19 yards.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s no sugarcoating a 0-2 start, no sugarcoating a loss to UNLV \u2014 which defeated a Big Ten team for the first time since 2003 \u2014 and no sugarcoating a schedule where clear-and-obvious victories no longer remain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not somebody that\u2019s going to come up here and give you guys excuses, but I have a lot of new people that are still finding ways to come together and really rely on each other,\u201d Foster told reporters before the late-night flight to get back for a Sunday practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to continue to build. It\u2019s a long season.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When DeShaun Foster became UCLA football head coach ahead of the 2024 season, he immediately installed personal tenets,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":208499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1369,1318,1317,1315,1316,62,2501,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-208498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-college-sports","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-ncaafootball","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ucla","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115164976585131427","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208498","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=208498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}