UCLA football drops to 0-3 after blowout loss to New Mexico

PASADENA — DeShaun Foster grasped a headset for his halftime radio spot alongside sideline reporter Wayne Cook.

“The better disciplined team will win this game,” Foster said before jogging to the sideline for the second half.

It was a message he had shared in Costa Mesa – where strict media restrictions took shape – repeated in Westwood and again stated after the Bruins’ first two defeats of the season.

UCLA already trailed at halftime for the third consecutive week. The Bruins had yet to lead in a game all season. Penalties – of which UCLA tallied 14 a week ago, its most in a game since the 2014 season – were still rampant, recording eight (of 13 total) by halftime. Hapless on offense, the downtrodden Bruins submitted two three-and-out drives to begin the second half, quarterback Nico Iamaleava ending the series by spiking the ball into the ground as his offensive line collapsed in front of him.

Foster’s halftime message appeared to fall on deaf Bruin ears in what became a 35-10 loss that sends the Bruins into their bye week at 0-3.

“It blows my mind – it blows my mind,” Foster said, when asked after the game why his message of discipline isn’t appearing on the field. “It’s something I’ve never been around, and we’re going to figure it out.”

The Lobos (2-1) didn’t make it easy on themselves to begin the second half. After a fumble on its previous drive, New Mexico gaffed again – a silver-platter gift for UCLA. Lobos wide receiver Michael Buckley fumbled on a punt return – the Lobos’ second turnover of the third quarter – flexing opportune field territory, debatably the Bruins’ best offensive play of the game coming on special teams.

UCLA couldn’t assemble a touchdown drive, done in by penalties that forced a Mateen Bhaghani field goal attempt. It didn’t matter. Lapse of identity and support in the stands beyond lower bowls full of underaged students on school trips – the Bruins couldn’t muster any fight.

“You can look at it two ways,” said Iamaleava, who finished 22-of-34 passing for 217 yards with one touchdown, a 12-yard pass to Titus Mokiao-Atimalala. “You can either look at this – you’re 0-3, and you fold and you don’t care about the season. Or you can look at it as we know that we’re not playing our best out there for us to lose these games.”

It was an all-too-familiar sight through three weeks at the Rose Bowl. The second half was no better than the first. And the Bruins’ results went from bad to worse on Friday night in front of 31,163 fans, most of whom didn’t stay to have their say as the final whistle blew.

Foster is now 5-10 as UCLA’s head coach, with potentially just one game left on the 2025 schedule in which the Bruins will enter as the favorite.

New Mexico barnstormed all over the Rose Bowl grass, bullying UCLA for 298 rushing yards – to equal the success of Utah and UNLV.

When Scottre Humphrey, the Lobos’ lead running back, exited the game and never returned after the first quarter, the rest of the New Mexico tailbacks kept pace. Damon Bankston stormed 43 yards on a pass from quarterback Jack Layne on a touchdown to increase the New Mexico lead to 28-10, sending UCLA linebacker Isaiah Chisom face-first into the turf.

Bankston finished with a game-high 154 rushing yards, more than the Bruins’ combined 109.

The Bruins showed some mettle in the pass rush against UNLV a week ago, but they failed to generate pressure against a New Mexico team that was a double-digit underdog.

Not one sack, not one tackle for loss – representing a whisper of an effort amid one of the worst starts – if not the worst – in program history.

“We just have to be at our best when our best is needed,” redshirt senior defensive tackle Gary Smith III said. “We get in critical situations, critical moments, and we just don’t perform to the level that we perform in practice. That’s something that we’re going to have to fix.”

Standing at the podium in the press conference room, Foster took his first question.

Is this the lowest point in his UCLA history, a storied two-decade run of Rose Bowl heroism as a player to the head coach mantle?

“It’s pretty low right now,” he said. “I’ve been around this program for a long time, and it’s just unfortunate – what’s going on right this moment.”