The question was about a team gaining late-season momentum.
The answer was about a coach seeking validation.
“Martin hired the right guy,” DeShaun Foster said Saturday evening after his team could finally exhale.
UCLA had just held on for a 27-20 victory over Nebraska at Memorial Stadium, giving Foster and the Bruins a second consecutive triumph in a season on the upswing after a dreadful start. With wins in three of its last four games, UCLA (3-5 overall, 2-4 Big Ten) would qualify for a bowl game in Foster’s first season.
Asked about his team’s surge, Foster pivoted to the athletic director who elevated him from running backs coach to head coach at his alma mater. Seated several feet away as his name came up in relation to picking Foster, Martin Jarmond chuckled.
Some mood lightening seemed in order given how far the team has come since its 1-5 start. Foster then resumed discussing his players who looked dominant in the early going against the Cornhuskers before making the plays needed to prevail after a shaky stretch that included repeated unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.
“The team has been playing well and doing the right thing,” Foster said, “and I’m just excited for this and we’re going to continue to get better as this year goes.”
What went unspoken was that Foster got the best of a matchup against Nebraska defensive coordinator Tony White, a former UCLA teammate of Foster’s who was also a candidate for the job that went to Foster amid the skepticism of some fans concerned about his lack of experience.
On Saturday, a new coach feeling secure in himself, the scoreboard told the story. Here are five takeaways from the Bruins’ latest victory:
Support system
Foster wasn’t the only coach who could preen.
Defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe assembled a game plan that flustered Nebraska quarterback Dylan Raiola with disguised blitzes before linebacker Carson Schwesinger knocked the freshman out of the game with a big hit.
Offensive line coach Juan Castillo presided over a unit that gave quarterback Ethan Garbers enough time to produce another career day.
Running backs coach Marcus Thomas oversaw a ground game that topped 100 yards for the first time this season, albeit with a huge assist from Garbers on his career-best 57-yard run.
Cornerbacks coach Kodi Whitfield’s attention to detail could be seen in Kaylin Moore sticking with a play until the end, grabbing the football after it bounced off a slot receiver’s knee for the game-saving interception.
There was plenty of credit to go around on a quickly assembled staff that is starting to produce.
Hold the line
There’s a reason Garbers suddenly looks like the quarterback many envisioned before the season.
It’s because he’s been given more than a second or two to throw the football.
UCLA’s retooled offensive line featuring tackles Garrett DiGiorgio and Niki Prongos, guards Spencer Holstege and Josh Carlin, and center Sam Yoon has rounded into an increasingly capable group the deeper it goes into the season.
Garbers was rarely pressured Saturday and sacked just twice.
“They’re doing a great job and I would just say not enough credit goes to coach Castillo, man,” Garbers said after completing 17 of 25 passes for 219 yards and two touchdowns without an interception. “He does such a great job throughout the week, just giving us the right looks, making sure we’re all on the same page and at the end of day it just comes down to us communicating out there and us figuring it out.”
Seeking discipline
Nebraska’s three scoring drives had something in common: They were sustained by an unsportsmanlike penalty on the Bruins.
Defensive tackle Sitiveni Havili Kaufusi along with linebackers Oluwafemi Oladejo and Ale Kaho had some explaining to do after getting called for those needless penalties.
“A lot of stuff is going to happen and somebody [might] hit you or grab your facemask,” Foster said, “but you can’t retaliate — the second guy always gets caught in [those] situations, so you’ve just got to be smarter than that and those are the kind situations that you’ve got to sacrifice for the greater of the team.”
The lack of discipline could lead to a loss if it isn’t corrected over the season’s final month.
You did what?
Foster’s bold decision-making from recent weeks gave way to a more cautious approach against Nebraska.
In the second quarter, Foster elected to kick a field goal rather than go for it on fourth and inches at Nebraska’s eight-yard line.
“I didn’t want to give them some sort of momentum,” Foster said of the Cornhuskers. “The fans were getting into the game, the crowd was getting into the game in those situations, so I just wanted to kind of keep them out of it.”
Later, with UCLA trying to run out the clock, Foster opted to punt rather than go for it on fourth and one at the Bruins’ 34. Nebraska got the ball back with 2 minutes 22 seconds left before Moore made the game-saving interception.
Scheduled success
UCLA’s remaining schedule isn’t making anyone quake in their cleats.
The only team left in Big Ten title contention — barely — is Iowa (6-3, 4-2). Washington (5-4, 3-3) has endured a somewhat bumpy first season under coach Jedd Fisch. USC (4-5, 2-5) is looking up at its crosstown rival in the conference standings and Fresno State (5-4) just lost to Hawaii.
Given that there are no more Penn States or Oregons on the schedule, the Bruins aren’t far away from realistically thinking about a bowl game.
“We’re not going to focus on that outcome,” Foster said. “This season is the first year [under his guidance] but we had that gauntlet that we’re going through, now we’re in like the middle piece and that’s the blue-collar teams that we’re playing against — they are tough, they have a certain style of play that they play with — and then at the end of the season we have our West Coast run, so we’re just trying to get through this blue-collar part and hopefully we can just continue to win.”