UCLA gets its 2026 home opener on Saturday at Rose Bowl Stadium, where the Bruins will meet San Diego State for the 25th time. Kickoff is set for 4:15 p.m. PT, and the game will air on Big Ten Network.
The Bruins and Aztecs both enter at 1-0, and this will be their first meeting in Pasadena since 2019. UCLA has dominated the series overall, holding a 22-1-1 edge dating back to 1922. Saturday also marks the 10th time the Bruins have hosted San Diego State at the Rose Bowl.
UCLA is coming off a 45-24 win at California last Saturday in Bob Chesney’s debut as head coach, and the opener came with plenty of firepower. The Bruins averaged 8.7 yards per carry and finished by outscoring California 21-0 in the fourth quarter. Chesney is now 13-4 in season openers over his head coaching career.
The ground game was the headline. UCLA ran for six touchdowns, its most against an FBS opponent since beating Arizona in 2015.
Wayne Knight scored three of them, turning in his first career multi-touchdown game and becoming the first Bruin to score three touchdowns in a debut since Zach Charbonnet in 2021. Knight finished with a team-high 157 all-purpose yards, including 71 rushing yards, 30 receiving yards and 56 on kickoff returns.
Anthony Woods added 118 rushing yards and two touchdowns of his own.
Defensively, Ta’Shawn James earned Big Ten Co-Defensive Player of the Week honors after making the first two interceptions of his career on consecutive California possessions in the fourth quarter. Those takeaways led to 14 points.
James, who started the game as a reserve, also posted eight tackles, tops among UCLA defensive backs and third on the team. He became the first Bruin to pick off two passes in a game since Carson Schwesinger did it in a homecoming win over Iowa on Nov.
8, 2024.
Senior linebacker Sammy Omosigho was everywhere in the opener as well. He nearly doubled his previous career high with 14 tackles, including seven solo stops, and added 2.0 tackles for loss, plus a strip-sack. Omosigho is in his first season at UCLA after playing from 2023-25 at Oklahoma, where he totaled 96 tackles, 10.0 tackles for loss, 2.0 sacks and one forced fumble in 37 games.
The roster around him looks different, too. UCLA brought in a Big Ten-leading 46 transfer student-athletes and 17 true freshmen this offseason, and 38 players made their Bruin debuts in the win at California. All 11 transfers from James Madison played.
Among that group is Knight, who was a 2025 Paul Hornung Award finalist and Associated Press second-team All-American after setting a school record with 2,039 all-purpose yards at James Madison. He enters Saturday needing 92 rushing yards to reach 2,000 for his career.
The Bruins also added junior defensive lineman Sahir West, the 2025 Sun Belt Freshman of the Year. West had 45 tackles, 14.0 tackles for loss, 7.0 sacks and one forced fumble last season, including a Sun Belt Championship game record 5.5 tackles for loss and 3.0 sacks against Troy on Dec.
5, 2025.
Nico Iamaleava returns at quarterback for his second season at UCLA after a strong opening performance against California. He completed 14 of 22 passes for 184 yards and connected on four throws of at least 20 yards, with two going to Mikey Matthews and one each to Landon Ellis and Knight. Iamaleava also ran for UCLA’s first touchdown of the season on a first-quarter keeper, his 11th career rushing score, and finished with 29 rushing yards.
Last season, Iamaleava completed 208 of 323 passes for 1,928 yards and 13 touchdowns with seven interceptions. He averaged 175.3 passing yards over 11 games and missed only the Nov. 15 game at Ohio State.
He also led the Bruins in rushing yards, carries and touchdowns, finishing with 505 yards, 112 carries and four scores on the ground. His 505 rushing yards ranked third among Big Ten quarterbacks despite playing in just 11 games, and he was one of only two Big Ten quarterbacks to post positive rushing yardage in every game he played.
Iamaleava was named to the Maxwell Award preseason watch list on Aug. 3 and later added to the 2026 Polynesian College Football Player of the Year watch list on Aug. 20. The Long Beach, Calif., native, who is of Samoan descent, was a finalist for that award at Tennessee in 2024 and has seven siblings.
Saturday’s game will be televised by Big Ten Network, with Wayne Randazzo on play-by-play, Brett Hundley as analyst and Emma Carpenter on the sideline. On the UCLA Audio Network, Josh Lewin will handle play-by-play alongside Matt Stevens and Wayne Cook. SiriusXM will carry the game on channels 178 and 231, and on the app at 955.
In Other News...
UCLAs Biggest Post-Cal Challenge Is Just Getting Started
After a road win at Cal, Bob Chesney spent Monday trying to steer UCLA away from the easy trap that follows a result like that. The Bruins got the kind of victory that can make a locker room feel a little too good about itself, and Chesney leaned on a lesson from his time at James Madison to make sure the message stayed clear: the work is not finished just because one good day turned into a better one.
San Diego State is next, and Chesney said UCLA still has to keep improving and lock back in quickly. For a team coming off a confidence-boosting trip, the challenge now is less about celebrating the win and more about proving it meant something by carrying the same edge into the next game. [Read more 🡒]
UCLA Left One Costly Red Zone Mistake That Better Teams Will Punish
UCLA opened Week One with a 21-point win and, for the most part, looked efficient when it got inside the red zone. The Bruins turned most of those chances into touchdowns and kept control of the game, which made the overall offensive showing feel encouraging even if there were a few early-seasons rough edges to clean up.
One empty trip still loomed large because it came just before halftime, when a short Nico Iamaleava pass was intercepted in the red zone and Cal quickly answered with a touchdown to trim the lead to 21-17. UCLA steadied after that and allowed only seven second-half points, but better teams are far more likely to punish that kind of wasted scoring chance. [Read more 🡒]
Bob Chesney May Have Found UCLAs Best Way To Win
For one afternoon, UCLA looked like a team that knew exactly where its advantage was and kept leaning into it. The Bruins rolled past Cal with a ground game that controlled the tempo, and the offense never seemed to need much from the passing attack while the backs took turns wearing down the defense.
Anthony Woods provided the burst with 118 yards on just eight carries, and transfer back Wayne Knight kept finding the end zone as the rotation stayed fresh and productive. The bigger question now is whether this was simply a favorable matchup or a sign that UCLA has found the kind of weekly identity that can travel. [Read more 🡒]