Nico Iamaleava came to the Bruins last offseason as a prized portal addition. It was a surprising twist that Deshaun Foster was able to land him. Considering he was fresh off leading Tennessee to the College Football Playoff and looking for NIL deals. UCLA has not been known to be large players in the NIL game compared to other Big Ten and SEC schools. This brought tremendous hope that UCLA was ready to return and be a winning program in Foster’s second year.
The hope quickly faded away as UCLA jumped out of the gates 0-3 including embarrassing losses to UNLV and New Mexico.