LOS ANGELES — Tuesday morning’s practice for the UCLA football team felt a little more jubilant than usual.
While the music echoed through the speakers as it always does, several players leaped into the air and chest bumped and then the team let out a loud roar before starting the stretching period
Coming home from New Jersey with a 35-32 win over Rutgers on Saturday, UCLA’s first win since Aug. 31 and its first Big Ten Conference win, certainly made for a more enthusiastic first practice back
But head coach DeShaun Foster wasn’t ready to call it a flawless victory by any means.
UCLA got out to a 35-19 lead at the start of the fourth quarter, but gave up two touchdowns, missed a field goal and had a fumble that gave Rutgers a chance to come back and steal the game.
According to Foster, the errors at the end of the game came down to his three pillars: discipline, respect and enthusiasm.
“We really didn’t finish the way that I wanted us to. We were able to put some points up and score, but we didn’t exactly finish with the discipline and respect and enthusiasm that I wanted us to finish with,” Foster said. “But other than that, I was pretty pleased with the victory.”
Fortunately for the Bruins, this week’s bye comes at an opportune time, giving the players and coaching staff extra time to fix the mistakes from Saturday.
It also allows for key players who have missed time, like receiver Rico Flores Jr. and offensive tackle Rueben Unije, a chance to get healthy.
“This is a big week for some of those guys that have been missing these last couple games, so we’re just excited that we got a bye week when we got it,” Foster said. “And hopefully we can get some guys back, especially at certain positions. So we’re going to get back healthy.”
There is something to be said about momentum, however, and Foster agreed that going straight into another game could provide an extra push to keep the momentum going.
Ultimately, the chance to get healthy and work on fixing mistakes are benefits the team needs at this point in the season.
“Going into this week, we have a lot of momentum, we played well,” Foster said. “And then now we got to have a bye week and then get it back going next week. So I think there’s a positive in both sides. We might have wanted to keep going, but I think there’s some stuff that we can work on that can help us.”
Bruins tight end Moliki Matavao, who finished with six receptions for 104 yards in the win over Rutgers, echoed his coach’s sentiment.
“We would love to get back out there and go play some games, but it’s also good to get the bodies back but also be able to fine-tune some,” Matavao said. “It wasn’t a perfect game, but there’s always stuff we can work on. We got away with the win, so now we can come out here, make some corrections and prepare for the next week.”
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Garbers wins weekly honors
After Ethan Garbers’ historic game Saturday, the senior quarterback was selected as the Big Ten Conference Offensive Player of the Week.
Garbers set career highs in completions (32), passing yards (383), passing touchdowns (4) and completion percentage (84%) in defeating Rutgers.
He was also named to the Davey O’Brien Award’s Great 8 for the week and the Manning Award “Stars of the Week” list. His inclusion in the Davey O’Brien Award’s Great 8 notched him a spot on the midseason watch list for the award, the oldest quarterback honor dating to 1981.