Kent Bewley's News Story Collection

On Sat, Sep 5, the UCLA Bruins began their 2026 FBS season with a road game against an old rival in the California Golden Bears. Meeting for the first time since leaving the PAC-12, the Bruins and Golden Bears are in separate conferences whose main charter schools are located thousands of miles away from their campuses. Both programs were starting anew with new head coaches, with Bob Chesney making his UCLA head coach debut after leading the James Madison Dukes to the College Football Playoff in 2025. Meanwhile, Cal had Tosh Lupoi as their new head coach after hiring him from Oregon and Lupoi is an alumnus of UC-Berkeley with six seasons as a defensive lineman from 2000-05. Both teams had massive transfer packages, as the Bruins had plenty of transfer players come over from JMU in following Chesney to Westwood. Some of those notable players include running back Wayne Knight, defensive end Sahir West and defensive back Derrick Barksdale. Nico Iamaleava was back for his second season as a Bruin and looking to help lead a rejuvenated offense to victory along with a rebooted defense on the other end of the ball. With a new era in tow, UCLA sought to be victorious over their old ursine rivals up the coast.

The game started with Cal getting the first possession and quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele led the Golden Bears on a strong drive with good passing and rushing. A TD pass to wideout Chase Hendricks opened the game well for the home team. But the Bruins responded with a good opening drive of their own as Iamaleava made a couple of key plays to transfer wide receiver Brian Rowe Jr, who picked up two first downs into Golden Bears territory. Iamaleava threw a short pass to Knight, who ran for 22 yards into the red zone. Iamaleava ran the ball in himself for a nine-yard rushing touchdown. The score was tied at 7 apiece following the PAT by Mateen Bhaghani.

The rest of the first quarter was a defensive ordeal as both teams traded punts twice. To begin the second quarter, the Cal offense was in Bruins territory and were looking for another TD. After a failed third down run, it was 4th & 3 and the Golden Bears stayed on the field to go for it. Sagapolutele threw a pass that was incomplete, but a flag was thrown on the field for pass interference against UCLA defensive back Scooter Jackson. The 15-yard penalty put Cal in the red zone in a goal-to-go position. The Bruins’ defense managed to keep the Golden Bears out of the end zone and kicker Towns McGough made a 28-yard field goal to give Cal a 10-7 lead. The UCLA offense came back onto the field and a couple of big chunk plays got them into opposing territory. After a completion by Iamaleava to Mikey Matthews for a first down, he handed the ball off to Anthony Woods, who would break a couple of tackles and dash down the field all the way into the end zone. An amazing 31-yard TD run by Woods gave the Bruins their first lead of the season. The lead was now 14-10 in favor of UCLA with ten minutes to go in the first half.

The Bruins’ defense forced the Golden Bears offense into a three-and-out on their next drive, with a big pass by Iamaleava to Matthews for 31 yards giving them a great start on the ensuing possession. Iamaleava threw another good pass on a third down to wideout Landon Ellis, who was another transfer from Chesney’s Dukes, for an 11-yard gain and a first down. A ten-yard run by Jaivian “Jet” Thomas put the UCLA offense in the red zone and an eight-yard completion to Knight was followed by a third-down run by Knight for a touchdown. It was Knight’s first TD as a Bruin and the lead was now 21-10.

With a few minutes left to go in the first half, things got a little wild as the Cal offense got a big-pass play out of the two-minute timeout to advance the ball 23 yards for a first down. But on the next play, Sagapolutele got strip-sacked by linebacker Sammy Omosigho, who is a transfer from Oklahoma, and the ball was recovered by Amier Washington, who is another transfer from Texas Tech. The Bruins had a golden opportunity to increase their lead by a wide margin before halftime now. With a first down picked up by Knight on a third-down run and another first down awarded due to a face mask penalty on the Golden Bears, the UCLA offense was back in the red zone. But Iamaleava made a big mistake when he threw a low ball that was picked off by DB Kingston Lopa, who went down to the field at the 13-yard line. With 51 seconds left and all three of their timeouts, the Cal offense needed to get some big plays to get into field goal range. They got just that on a crazy third down throw by Sagopolutele, who threw a long ball that was caught by wideout Ian Strong for a big gain of 49 yards and a first down into Bruins territory. Lupoi called timeout as Sagopolutele was limping down the field. Another big completion to Hendricks put the Golden Bears into the red zone and Sagopolutele threw a solid pass on 1st & goal that was caught by tight end Mason Mini for a touchdown. Cal was only down by four points after that fatal interception thrown by Iamaleava. With only 13 seconds left, the Bruins got some good field position on a weird kickoff and an illegal formation penalty on the Golden Bears’ kicking team. From the 37-yard line, Iamaleava threw a downfield pass that was caught by Matthews for 43 yards at the Cal 20-yard line for a first down. Chesney called timeout and the field goal unit came on with six seconds left on the clock. The 38-yard attempt by Bhaghani went through the uprights for a solid score to conclude the half at a score of 24-17 in favor of the Bruins, who were looking very efficient so far in this season-opening game.

UCLA started the second half with possession, but a scary play occurred to start out their opening drive as a few players lateraled the ball around. One of them was Landon Ellis, who threw a backward lateral to Iamaleava, who proceeded to throw an incomplete pass. But Ellis got hit hard by a Golden Bears linebacker in the head and was down on the field. The medical training staff came to check on Ellis, who eventually got up and was escorted off the field. The head referee took a look at the play to determine if the Cal defender had committed an act of targeting and the ruling on the field was that the player did commit targeting. Unfortunately, the Bruins could not capitalize on the penalty and had to punt the ball back to the Golden Bears. Cal proceeded to go on a long, 15-play drive that ended with a rushing touchdown by Adam Mohammed. The game was tied at 24 and the UCLA offense was looking inefficient with Iamaleava getting pressured.

The fourth quarter began with the Golden Bears in position around midfield, but an illegal man downfield penalty held them back slightly. However, Cal picked up a couple of first downs and on a third and three play, Sagopolutele threw an incomplete pass. But the Golden Bears offense stayed on to go for it on fourth down. However, there was a bad snap by center Ashton Rivera that landed at the feet of Sagopolutele and the ball was downed on the field in a pileup. The Bruins had great field position to try and break the tie, but the drive was compromised due to an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on right tackle Riley Robell. A punt occurred with the ball going back to Cal inside their 20-yard line.

A couple of ineffective plays started out the next drive for the Golden Bears and on third down, Sagopolutele decided to test his luck and throw another downfield pass while being pressured by UCLA defenders. But this time, the ball went off the hands of a Cal receiver and it dropped into the hands of defensive back Ta’Shawn James, who ran back with the ball to the Golden Bears’ 31-yard line. James was a transfer from Iowa State and he just made his first big play as a Bruin. On the very first play from scrimmage, Iamaleava handed the ball off to Knight, who ran with it to the right end and all way into the end zone for a touchdown. A big 31-yard run by Knight, who had his second touchdown of the night. With the PAT by Bhaghani made, it was a 31-24 UCLA lead with the successful interception leading to seven points.

With eight and a half minutes left in regulation, this game was far from over as the Cal offense looked to redeem themselves with a game-tying score. A first down was picked up on a reception by Strong and a couple of plays later, Sagapolutele looked to throw the ball again from his left hand. But when he did, the ball was intercepted again by one Ta’Shawn James at the 46-yard line of the Golden Bears. A two-interception night for James, who had two picks in as many drives. On a longer drive, the Bruin offense got into scoring range again and on a third down run, Iamaleava ran to the right and got a first down. But a collision occurred with Iamaleava hitting the leg of a Cal defender and going down to the field as the ball came loose. But it was recovered by Iamaleava, who immediately grimaced in pain when he attempted to get up. His left leg gave out on him and he went down onto the field. Another scary injury incident for Iamaleava, who dealt with plenty of injury scares in his sophomore season last year. Coming in to relieve the injured starting QB was Iamaleava’s younger brother Madden Iamaleava, who appeared in one game last season when his brother got hurt. Madden was mostly in to hand the ball off and not throw any passes as Chesney had to improvise the offensive game plan. A five-yard run by Woods was followed by a false start, and another handoff to Woods gained six yards. On third down, Knight ran the ball for 17 yards and a first down to the four-yard line, where he would run the ball in for the touchdown. It was a hat trick for Knight, who had himself an incredible debut as a Bruin.

With the game in hand at a 38-24 score, the UCLA defense got one last stop on the Cal offense and scored one more time for good measure as Woods ran for a 53-yard score to seal off the game. It was a 45-24 final score for the Bruins, who looked very mighty in the season-opening win over Cal. The game was run with six rushing touchdowns, with eight carries each for both Knight and Woods. A total of 277 rushing yards occurred for UCLA and Nico Iamaleava did the best he could with commanding an improved offense. In spite of a lot of passing yards given up to Sagapolutele, the Bruins defense did well to contain the running game and passing game of the Golden Bears. With a good season-opening win, UCLA will now look forward to its home opener at the Rose Bowl against San Diego State, which is now a part of the revamped PAC-12. The first conference game for the Bruins in the Big Ten will come at home against Purdue on Sat, Sep 18, so a good start to the first quarter of the season will be in order for this program that is now looking forward to an energetic first season under the leadership of new head coach Bob Chesney, who has won big at every program that he has coached. Let’s hope that precedent remains true in Westwood.