PASADENA, Calif. — No Power Four college football program has undergone more change during the last six months than UCLA.
The Bruins swapped quarterback Joey Aguilar for Nico Iamaleava with Tennessee in the first “unofficial trade” in college football history during the spring transfer portal window. Then, last month, UCLA fired coach DeShaun Foster after a disastrous loss to New Mexico at home and saw offensive coordinator Tino Sunseri and defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe depart from the program shortly after.
Sitting at 0-4 and being the only FBS team that hadn’t led in a game this season, it would’ve been easy for Iamaleava — the former top-ranked player in the 247Sports transfer rankings — to pack it up. Instead, Iamaleava put Penn State in a position where winning out might be the only guarantee at a spot in the College Football Playoff after UCLA delivered the most stunning result of the season with a 42-37 win over No. 7 Penn State on Saturday at the Rose Bowl.
“There was a lot of outside noise coming into it,” Iamaleava said. “I was preaching to the guys, if you don’t want to be here, you can leave. I was basically telling the guys, whoever still believes that we are still in this and that we have games ahead of us that we can go win, then let’s roll.”
You can count on one hand the number of active college football players who have been talked about as much as Iamaleava since his shocking departure from Tennessee earlier this spring. Even before that, Iamaleava was talked about just as much as anyone during his recruitment as a five-star quarterback coming out of Southern California, where he served as one of the early faces of Name, Image and Likeness.
When Iamaleava transferred to UCLA, there was an immediate sense of hope that Iamaleava could be the star at the position the program was looking for. Through UCLA’s first four games, Iamaleava was anything but that. He was among the most pressured quarterbacks in the country and UCLA’s offense ranked last among all Power Four teams (14.2) in points per game.
In the midst of more change, more chaos, and more uncertainty around the program with Sunseri departing just days before the Penn State game, 33-year-old Jerry Neuheisel was promoted to UCLA’s active offensive coordinator. That meant he had to come up with a game plan with Iamaleava, on a short week, against a stout Penn State defense led by first-year defensive coordinator Jim Knowles.
Whatever UCLA did, or didn’t do, it worked. Iamaleava finished 17 of 24 for 166 yards and rushed for 128 yards and three touchdowns. He set a new career high in rushing yards and total touchdowns and offered a glimpse into why UCLA signed him in the first place despite the baggage he was bringing with him.
“Nico brought these guys together,” Neuheisel said. “I would love to take a lot of credit, like all of a sudden we said some voodoo magic to him, but that’s who he is. That’s what he’s capable of. … He’s special.”
By signing Iamaleava and seeing Aguilar simultaneously enter the transfer portal, the risk — on the field and financially — was apparent. After all, quarterbacks who are former five-star recruits or have a ceiling of someone who can play on Sundays don’t enter the transfer portal very often.
After all the noise, chaos and change the first month of the season has brought, for 60 football minutes, Iamaleava showed why UCLA went all-in on the untapped talent. Iamaleava didn’t just deliver the signature moment of his UCLA tenure Saturday. He delivered the defining moment of his entire football career.
