Missed tackles and penalties, the script of the first three weeks of the season, reared its ugly head in Bloomington.
Any Bruins fan back home could see Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza steer his way through handfuls of defenders for first downs. UCLA interim coach Tim Skipper could see it too, watching from the sideline as No. 2 Indiana throttled the visiting blue and gold 56-6 — the Bruins’ first 50-point defeat since USC won 50-0 in 2011.
Saturday marked just the sixth time in program history (according to data since 1928) that UCLA lost by 50 points or more.
“We just started slow and (had) too many penalties, that’s the main thing,” Skipper told reporters of his team that began its first drive with an interception on Nico Iamaleava’s first pass attempt. “Our tackling, like we talked about — the stuff we’ve talked about — we’re going to have to get back in the trenches.”
Notably, the Bruins’ secondary tallied three defensive pass interference penalties. Wide receiver Mikey Matthews earned an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that ultimately wiped away most of an Iamaleava scramble down to Indiana’s 19-yard line.
From there, the second-quarter drive stalled, and kicker Mateen Bhaghani connected for his first of two field goals that combined for all of the Bruins’ six points.
For only the third time since 1995 (the limits of the Football Reference’s Stathead database), an opponent held UCLA football to 201-or-fewer yards of total offense, to 4.1-or-fewer passing yards per attempt, to 3.5-or-fewer rushing yards per attempt, and the Bruins failed to record a touchdown.
Six points, however, were nowhere close enough to keep up with the Hoosiers’ offensive profile, continuously storming downfield for 475 yards overall. Among UCLA’s front seven, pass-rushing woes continued with the Bruins recording just one tackle for loss (credited to linebacker Jalen Woods).
UCLA entered the game dead last in the Big Ten in tackles for loss and sacks. The Bruins will remain last in the conference in both categories.
Nationally, only winless Massachusetts ranked lower than the Bruins in tackles for loss per game, but after the Minutemen recorded seven tackles for loss against Central Michigan on Saturday, the Bruins are all by themselves at the bottom of the pack.
Rushing defense also continued to be exploited. Often the weak spot of UCLA since the beginning of the season, the Bruins had averaged giving up 186 rushing yards per game. On Saturday, that snowballed into 262 yards on the ground for the Hoosiers as Indiana coach Curt Cignetti kept turning to his tailback duo of Roman Hemby (two rushing touchdowns) and Kaelon Black.
“To see a team wave the white flag,” Cignetti said to local media after the game, “it takes a while. Maybe that’s what happened here.”
Redshirt senior defensive lineman Keanu Williams told reporters after the game that Saturday’s game was already “lost” in his head — ready to attack the bye week head-on with Nebraska next on the schedule on Nov. 8.
But for Williams, he felt as if the Bruins still needed to shore up the aspects of their defensive technique that gave them problems in early defeats in 2025.
“Details and self-inflicted wounds,” Williams told reporters. “We can’t keep having penalties, flags, things like that. We just can’t keep having that. So, that’s just what we gotta work on when it comes to the bye week.”
No. 2 Indiana brings UCLA football back to earth in rout
