The woes were difficult to ignore. The results were even worse.
Since 2018, the start of the Chip Kelly era, UCLA football had allowed 450 or more yards and 250 rushing yards at home on only three occasions.
Through three games in the 2025 season, the Bruins had accomplished the feat twice.
Utah and New Mexico walked over UCLA in Weeks 1 and 3, respectively, the latter of which turned head coach DeShaun Foster – and soon after, defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe – into remnants of the past, bygones of a brutal skid fans and players alike were itching to forget.
The writing was on the wall: National and local pundits alike deemed the Bruins’ noncompetitive nature, after replacing all 11 defensive starters from the previous season, too hard to overcome.
Since Tim Skipper took over as the Bruins’ interim head coach at the beginning of Week 4, the Bruins’ new defensive tune has been sung so well, so fluently, that he and senior defensive analyst Kevin Coyle might consider going on tour.
“I tip my hat to coach Kevin Coyle and the defensive staff,” Skipper told reporters after UCLA defeated Michigan State 38-13 to become 2-1 in the Big Ten. “They’re doing a great job of just getting the guys better every single day.”
Against Michigan State on Saturday, the Bruins turned in statistically their best defensive performance in a victory since joining the Big Ten and allowed the fewest amount of total yardage (353) since their October 2023 victory over Colorado at the Rose Bowl.
The Spartans tallied just 87 rushing yards, the least the Bruins have conceded this season.
UCLA’s secondary recorded its second-best effort, giving up just 166 passing yards, since joining the conference. Their best? Two weeks prior, when UCLA fell to Northwestern, and still held the Wildcats to just 115 passing yards.
Skipper had watched from the sidelines, or from an office at the Wasserman Football Center, when he served as a special assistant to Foster, and had seen the Bruins’ struggles from afar. When he took over the head coaching mantle in September, the former Fresno State interim head coach turned back the clock to training camp to focus on basics and fundamentals.
For Skipper, the fundamentals – such as UCLA’s tackling, which had been much maligned in the losses to Utah, UNLV and New Mexico – remain the focus.
“I think it’s more fundamentals than actual scheme,” Skipper said when asked about what’s gone into the Bruins’ practices to better tackling. “Being a defensive player and a former player myself, when you’re confident and you know what’s going on, you play a lot better, you play faster and stuff starts clicking.”
Click, they have. UCLA’s touted defensive leaders, since the start of the preseason, had begun to show themselves. JonJon Vaughns and Isaiah Chisom, linebackers at the heart of the Bruins’ defensive attack, have shot to the top of the Big Ten’s tackle charts. Vaughns ranks first in the conference with 58 total tackles; Chisom is fourth with 54.
Gary Smith III and Keanu Williams, redshirt senior defensive linemen who were expected to lead the Bruins’ pass rush efforts, have begun to show their experience in recent weeks. Taking up space in the center of every play, their size has allowed edge rushers like transfers Keachaun Bennett and Anthony Jones to combine for 4.5 tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks.
Williams said UCLA’s new defensive operation began to click for him against Penn State, when the Bruins held the Nittany Lions to a shocking 92 yards in the first half.
They’d won the turnover battle. They’d done the little things – such as wrapping up a foe for a simple tackle – that had escaped UCLA early in the 2025 campaign.
As Skipper said, “stuff starts clicking” when the players know what’s going on. Williams felt that sensation firsthand.
“I’m like ‘OK, now we’re all rolling,’ you know? Then everyone’s getting four or five tackles,” Williams said. “Everyone’s flying to the ball. We’re playing fast.”
Coyle, who served as Fresno State defensive coordinator from 2022 to 2024, has turned to a host of Bruins to fill depth as well. Scott Taylor, Jewelous Walls, Jamir Benjamin and Kanye Clark – all of whom are redshirt freshmen or true freshmen – have seen increased playing time since the coaching shifts that have transformed UCLA in Big Ten action. Ty Lee and Wyatt Mosier, both of whom are redshirt sophomore linebackers, have tallied increased playing time as well.
For defensive lineman Devin Aupiu – who knocked Michigan State quarterback Aidan Chiles out of the game Saturday with a booming sack and forced fumble – UCLA’s improved defense has been attached to the group playing more as a team despite the coaching uncertainty, which he called a low point in the season.
“With this new day and age of the transfer portal, and stuff like that, it’s hard to build bonds,” said the redshirt senior, one of the few returners to the Bruins’ roster that introduced 57 new players. “All that chaos kind of just brought us closer together as players. The one constant was us. Coaches coming in and out, so the only thing that we could really rely on was each other.”
Through relying on each other, the Bruins built team-wide messaging with Skipper, the Bruins’ new coach’s soliloquies rubbing off on the team’s identity. Since Northwestern, UCLA’s shared their stories over how they “strained” on the football field – that last gasp bit of effort that pushes a player beyond the 100% barrier.
It was no different in East Lansing, Michigan. Defensive back Cole Martin felt it. When asked by reporters after the game about what he felt was different after the Bruins’ 0-4 start, the redshirt sophomore transfer from Arizona State jumped to the team’s word of choice.
“Straining,” Martin told reporters. “The biggest thing for us has been straining on defense, getting off the field, knowing the situation, winning the situation, and playing like that.”
Out of all Power 4 teams (including Notre Dame) that have played three games since Skipper took charge against Northwestern, UCLA ranks fifth in yards allowed and eighth in points allowed.
And, starting with Saturday’s home game against Maryland, there are another six chances for the Bruins to build on their defensive identity going forward.
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