LAS VEGAS — 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.
But the deficit was too much to overcome. UCLA’s 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.
“It’s a tale of two halves,” UCLA coach DeShaun Foster said. “First half, (we) didn’t 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’t have done and stopped drives and getting in our own way. But it’s something that we can fix.”
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.
Iamaleava, “he’s a gamer,” Foster said. “He’s somebody that – he wants to make big plays. He’s 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.”
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.
“It just starts with me,” Iamaleava said. “I (got to) be better coming out. I started off a little slow. … We (got to) be more disciplined. It was way too many penalties out there, cost us a lot of points.”
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.
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’s pass was just out of reach of an open Jack Pedersen.
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.
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.
“I made a bad decision throwing it over the middle,” said Iamaleava, who rushed for 59 yards. “I (got to) be better.”
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’t help the Bruins on defense.
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.
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.
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.
“I’m 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,” Foster said. “The situation that we’re in the first half, we didn’t really help ourselves out when it came in the second half and then we finally started to execute, but it still wasn’t enough.”
The game’s opening drive was a sign of things to come for UCLA’s 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.
A facemask penalty and a pass interference penalty on Cole Martin hurt UCLA on UNLV’s next offensive drive and set the Rebels up at the 21, where Colandrea’s touchdown pass to Nick Elksnis put the Bruins behind 10-0 late in the first quarter, and they trailed 23-3 at halftime.