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Somebody should check with SoFi Stadium to see if it rescinded its offer.
In what could have been UCLA’s last game at the Rose Bowl after 43 years of calling the place home, the Bruins unfurled the kind of showing that no one would ever want to relive or put in a scrapbook, much less market as part of a future plan.
If this was goodbye, it was a sad sendoff.
There were lost fumbles, a laughably bad fake field goal that resulted in a touchdown for the other team and a dropped pass that probably cost UCLA its own score. And that was just in the first half.
Adding injury to insult, UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava took a crunching hit that sidelined him late in the third quarter, ending his gritty return from a concussion that had forced him to miss his team’s last game.
There’s mercifully only one game left for the Bruins this season after a 48-14 loss to Washington on Saturday night led to a fast-emptying stadium, no fond farewells in store for the home fans amid an announced crowd of 38,201 that was too depleted by game’s end to boo.
The site of UCLA’s next home game remains as big of an unknown as its next head coach. School officials have said they are still contemplating plans for where the team will play in the future, though that decision could be up to a court to decide given the Bruins have nearly two decades left on a Rose Bowl lease that doesn’t expire until the summer of 2044.
It’s believed that if school officials have their way, they will move to SoFi Stadium in time for their 2026 season opener. UCLA defensive back Cole Martin, a native of Pasadena, did not seem happy about the possibility of abandoning the Rose Bowl as his home stadium.
“The Rose Bowl means a lot to me,” said Martin, whose interception in the second quarter was one of only a handful of big plays for the Bruins. “It makes me emotional thinking about it. It’s everything to me, for sure.”
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UCLA fans tailgating before what might be the Bruins’ final game at the Rose Bowl lament the loss of a tradition if the school moves its football games to SoFi Stadium.
Wherever the Bruins play next season, they have a lot of improvements to make. They looked lethargic in falling behind 34-0 on Saturday while making one mistake after another on the way to a fourth consecutive defeat.
“We just couldn’t stop the bleeding, you know?” UCLA interim coach Tim Skipper said.
By the time he entered the game, there was little backup quarterback Luke Duncan could do except make the final score slightly more palatable. He succeeded on that front, firing a 37-yard touchdown pass to Mikey Matthews late in the third quarter that helped UCLA (3-8 overall, 3-5 Big Ten) avoid a shutout.
There was another highlight for the Bruins early in the fourth quarter when Kanye Clark forced a fumble on Washington’s punt return, allowing Jamir Benjamin to pick up the ball and run 13 yards for a touchdown.
But make no mistake: This was complete domination by the Huskies (8-3, 5-3), who rolled up 426 yards of offense while holding the Bruins to 207 yards, including just 57 yards rushing.
Washington alumnus and comedian Joel McHale performed a short recorded bit that was shown on the scoreboard before the game, but the real slapstick was about to come.
The Bruins coughed up two fumbles in the first half and would have lost a third had the Huskies not been called for defensive holding on the play, nullifying the turnover.
“Turnovers are always going to kill you,” Skipper said, “so we’ve got to find a way to fix that as we get into next week.”
UCLA wide receiver Titus Mokiao-Atimalala dropped what could have been a touchdown pass at the Huskies’ 38-yard line with nothing but open field in front of him.
But there was no blunder quite like what happened when the Bruins lined up for a 46-yard field goal late in the second quarter. Holder Cash Peterman took the snap and flipped the ball over his shoulder as kicker Mateen Bhaghani circled behind him, the ball hitting the turf instead of Bhaghani’s hands.
Washington’s Alex McLaughlin picked up the ball and ran 59 yards for a touchdown that put the Huskies ahead, 20-0.
Skipper said the Huskies showed one look in their field-goal defense before shifting out of it prior to the snap, causing chaos for the Bruins.
“The communication on our end got all jacked up when they stemmed out of it,” Skipper said, “so I’ll take the heat for it — it was probably too complicated, it was too much communication and we miscommunicated and that’s what happened.”
Things never got appreciably better, the Bruins left adrift without a haven in sight.
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Ben Bolch has been a Los Angeles Times staff writer since 1999. Twice awarded top-10 finishes in feature writing by the Associated Press Sports Editors, he began his second stint as the UCLA beat writer in 2016. His first stint, during the 2010-11 season, ended with yet another crushing loss to Florida in the NCAA tournament. Over his 25 years at The Times, Bolch has also covered the Lakers, Clippers, Dodgers, Angels, USC men’s basketball and high schools. His favorite athletes to cover were Dave Roberts, Jamal Crawford, Jose Lima, David Eckstein, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Thomas Welsh, Josh Kelley and Aday Mara. Bolch is also the author of the book “100 Things UCLA Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.”
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