LOS ANGELES — Garrett DiGiorgio is the longest-tenured starter at UCLA. He’s been in Westwood for the Bruins’ highs of the top-10 rankings in the Associated Press poll in 2022 and taking down USC in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 2021, with Dorian Thompson-Robinson riding high at quarterback for the Bruins.
The offensive lineman hadn’t, however, experienced the deafening lows of last week’s bye week, a UCLA (0-3) team pressing the refresh button over and over again and attempting to rise after a crushing start to its 2025 season, which went so poorly that second-year head coach DeShaun Foster earned an early-season firing.
DiGiorgio recognized the sulk and sadness – somewhat unprecedented in Westwood or any college football program besides Virginia Tech, which also made a coaching change Sept. 14. So the longtime Bruin, who sits on UCLA football’s leadership council, brought out his JBL music speaker, placing it smack dab in the center of the locker – anything to get the juices flowing for the Bruins, badly drudging forward for victory No. 1.
“I think it starts with the little things,” DiGiorgio said recently, emotional over Foster’s firing a week ago. “Trying to just liven everything up, from meetings, practice, locker room, all the way up to the top. I think that it just really starts from the bottom up, and we’ve got to keep doing that.”
DiGiorgio said the Bruins have created themed music days like “Throwback Thursdays,” among others. The 6-foot-7, 320-pound redshirt senior, often thrust in front of the media as a trusted member of the roster to speak on behalf of his teammates, said he and his peers are attempting to keep the energy high with nine Big Ten games remaining on the schedule.
“We have a whole season ahead of us, so we’re not letting the effect of [Foster’s firing] break us all the way down for the rest of the year,” DiGiorgio said, adding he helped fully clean the locker room as a test of discipline.
Redshirt senior defensive back Key Lawrence echoed his teammate’s sentiment, adding that the small things – such as picking up a piece of tape off the ground and disposing of it into a trash can – can build into larger tests that could show up on the football field.
“If you do the small things, the bigger things will pop up, and it’ll be a bigger emphasis for us, then we attack them,” Lawrence said. “Just knowing the small things, like the locker room and the stuff that we need to worry about, everything will take care of itself.”
Leading the Bruins for the rest of the season is interim coach Tim Skipper. He coined the bye week as training camp, in many ways a blank slate as the former Fresno State interim coach – serving for the full 2024 season – took control of UCLA after being promoted from a special assistant role, in which he handled administrative and day-to-day tasks for Foster.
Skipper said a week ago that it’s not so much about the number of victories that the Bruins end the 2025 season with, but more so about the style of play UCLA can show on the gridiron with games such as a nationally televised showdown with No. 3 Penn State on the docket next week.
“As long as you can find ways to have energy and passion and compete, I think you give yourselves a chance,” Skipper said Monday. “To be honest with you. I’m a person who, once the game starts, your record and all that, where you’re playing, all that stuff that goes out the way.”
In Costa Mesa, when UCLA traveled away from Westwood for a fall training camp that included beach outings, bonding activities and “brotherhood meetings,” the Bruins did plenty of the classic training camp trips to boost team chemistry.
Skipper, still getting to know his players, planned a recent bowling outing during an off day from practice, saying he wanted to see competitive spirit from UCLA off the field.
Skipper said he and the coaching staff needed an escape from the Wasserman Football Center after a week of reloading and refocusing on how to approach a season that restarts with Northwestern on Saturday.
“I enjoyed watching the guys have a little bit of fun and having them try to get the highest score, and then we ate dinner in there also, so it was all good,” Skipper said. “It was a good chance to get away and take a deep breath.”
Lawrence, who is one of the loudest – if not the most boisterous – players on UCLA, said he has appreciated Skipper’s focus on growing the team chemistry ahead of Big Ten play.
When it comes to knocking down pins, however, Lawrence joked that it doesn’t matter what happened on the lanes – because he may be the best bowler on the team.
“Everybody knows I’m the best bowler on the team,” Lawrence quipped before letting out a laugh. “I don’t really want to harm and bash nobody right now. I’m a perfect-300 bowler – ask whoever you want to ask.”
Skipper said Monday that decisions on who will play against Northwestern are up for grabs, and that the practices held Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday will be the ultimate decider across team personnel.
But maybe it could be the strike – the burst of competitive edge – that sets one Bruin apart from his teammate on game day.
“I don’t care what we’re doing, whether we’re bowling or playing football, whatever,” Skipper said. “Compete to win – that’s what we’re trying to build [with] that atmosphere.”
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