UCLA Bruin fans must feel significantly better about how the offseason went for UCLA football compared to the regular season. UCLA went 3-9 and was consistently overpowered. Those struggles led to the firing of DeShaun Foster and the hiring of Bob Chesney, to help inspire positive change for the program.
USA TODAY’s Paul Myerburg graded every FBS college football program for their 2025 season and surprisingly UCLA received a C-. Myerburg resisted from giving any program an outright F this season but there was a lot of ugly for a C- season for the Bruins.
The win against Penn State does a lot of the heavy lifting for the UCLA season. Wins over Michigan State and Maryland are nice, but not enough to out-weigh the horrendous losses to UNLV, New Mexico, Indiana and Ohio State. At the time, UCLA’s win over No. 7 Penn State was shocking but the Nittany Lions fell apart from that point, eventually firing head coach James Franklin.
Following the three-game win streak, the Bruins lost five in a row to close out the season, allowing 41.8 points per game over that stretch. The losing streak ensured that UCLA would not consider keeping interim head coach Tim Skipper in a permanent role, forcing the Bruins to start from the ground up.
Myerburg bakes in expectations to his grading system, so while UCLA was not expected to make a run to the College Football Playoffs, they weren’t expected to lose to multiple Mountain West Conference teams either. With Chesney now in the fold, the Bruins will have higher expectations in 2026 with Nico Iamaleava and the influx of talent from James Madison.
This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: UCLA gets graded C- for 2025 season by USA TODAY writer
Reporting by Dylan McNeill, UCLA Wire / UCLA Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
