Coach DeShaun Foster said the Bruins weren’t playing like themselves at halftime.

“This is not us. Let’s get back to what we’ve been doing in practice and what we’ve been doing in fall camp,” said redshirt senior quarterback Ethan Garbers, reciting Foster’s halftime speech. “We came out in the second half and did our thing.”

Now – after squeaking out a win in its season-opener against Hawai’i – UCLA football has a bye week to find and solidify who it is ahead of its next game against Indiana.

“A lot of work to still do,” said sophomore wide receiver Rico Flores Jr. “That’s why we got this bye week – get in the lab, straighten everything up. … I’m kind of mad we got a bye week this week… I want to play.”

Flores led the Bruins with 102 receiving yards against the Rainbow Warriors while scoring the Bruins’ lone touchdown. While he said there are still mountains left to climb, he added that his success in his Bruin debut was largely thanks to the coaching staff’s meticulousness.

Redshirt senior Ramon Henderson – who caught one of two UCLA interceptions against Hawai’i – said some of the Bruins’ lackluster first-half play was due to first-game jitters.

“You see a lot of teams come out on their first Saturday and it’s just not the same,” the defensive back said. “Adrenaline’s pumping, it’s time to go. You see a lot of mental errors. We can obviously get a lot better.”

A hunger to return to the gridiron seems to be a common theme between all members of Foster’s arsenal.

Henderson, who is in his second year playing alongside Flores after their stints at Notre Dame, echoed the sentiment as he awaits his second game sporting the blue and gold.

“I would love to not be sitting down on Saturday and play again as well,” Henderson said. “That’s not just him (Flores) and I though, that’s pretty much the whole team. If we could play Indiana damn near tomorrow in the middle of a parking lot, that’d be the thing to do.”

Through the Bruins’ game-free week, Foster said the intent at practice remains at a high, stimulating game-like situations.

On Wednesday, Foster added that fourth-down decisions are his to make and he doesn’t default to anyone on his coaching staff.

“Every (fourth-down) decision that we did was me,” Foster said. “I’m telling everybody what to do. There’s no decisions being made by any other coaches.”

One of Foster’s more noteworthy choices was going for a 52-yard field goal with redshirt senior kicker Blake Glessner in the second quarter. The coach had initially kept the offense on for the fourth-and-four, but after using a timeout, ran out the kicking unit. Glessner’s kick flew wide right.

Foster also pushed back against the idea that the Bruins had a long-distance versus short-distance kicker during the game. Instead, it was scheduled that Glessner would get the first two kicks and sophomore Mateen Bhaghani would get the next two – regardless of distance.

Starting tackles redshirt junior Garrett DiGiorgio and redshirt senior Reuben Unije are expected to return to the front lines soon. DiGiorgio was scratched from the game just ahead of the Bruins’ opener while Unije was hurt during play.

While Foster admitted the run game wasn’t working for the Bruins in Honolulu, he described it as an issue with the whole offense rather than the fault of a specific group of players.

“They didn’t blink,” Foster said. “The game didn’t exactly go the way that guys were expecting it to go, but we’re playing against a good opponent. … I’m just glad they were resilient and kept playing.”

Looking ahead, Foster said Indiana – who his unit will face on Sept. 14 – is a solid defensive team with a strong veteran presence and a foe that will demand the Bruins’ “‘A’ game.”