BRUINS RETURN TO EARTH

UCLA reverts to poor, undisciplined play in an embarrassing road loss to the Hoosiers

- BEN BOLCH

UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava (9) gets sacked by Indiana defensive lineman Tyrique Tucker (95) on Saturday at Memorial Stadium.

On UCLA's first offensive play, quarterback Nico Iamaleva found himself swarmed by a pack of defenders for a sack.

On the next play, Iamaleava faced pressure again before throwing a pass that was intercepted and returned for a touchdown.

"That’s a rough start, man,” Iamaleava said.

It never got much better for the Bruins on a chilly, cloudy Saturday afternoon that was darker than the foreboding weather.

A team that had become the feelgood story of the college football season suffered a throwback performance in the worst way at Memorial Stadium during a 56-6 loss to No. 2 Indiana.

There was a return to missed tackles. Repeated penalties. An offensive line that got pushed around. A run game that failed to get going.

“It’s just flat-out the trenches,” UCLA interim coach Tim Skipper said in assessing one of the biggest problems. “We lost that battle — and that’s what we talk about all the time, winning in the trenches, and they did that, they stopped our run game and the score gets out of hand and you have to throw it a little bit more than you want to and we just never got back to our style of play, that’s the bottom line.”