This post was updated Nov. 12 at 11:27 p.m.

UCLA football (4-5, 3-4 Big Ten) overpowered Iowa (6-4, 4-3) by a score of 20-17 Friday night at the Rose Bowl, punching in its first home victory this season. Sports editor Ira Gorawara provides her five main takeaways from the game.

From bust to bowl

UCLA’s season looked dead in the water just a month ago.

A 1-5 start and murmurs of hopelessness dragged the team further into an abyss, leaving few fragile pockets of hope clinging to the surface.

But after UCLA clinched its third-straight Big Ten win – a 20-17 bruiser against Iowa – those whispers have powerfully morphed into rumblings of revival.

Friday’s victory wasn’t any other – UCLA out Iowa’d Iowa in a conference triumph. A team lauded for its punishing defense and hard-nosed physicality heralded thousands of Hawkeye fans nearly 2,000 miles away from Iowa City to Pasadena – only to be blindsided by repeated punches to the mouth.

Amid the despondency that veiled over the Bruins through their first six games, one man was entangled in the harshest of criticism: coach DeShaun Foster.

Former coach Chip Kelly left UCLA’s roster in tatters, handing Foster the thankless task of patching up gaping holes, particularly on defense, while inheriting a middling team scrambling to make a conference transition.

Six games in, and Foster couldn’t snag an ounce of mercy, with calls for his firing spreading around Westwood. Though few listened, he reminded the media through it all that “something was being built.”

We’re now seeing the fruits of that construction – something really was brewing in the Bruin locker room, even if it took time to bubble up onto the gridiron.

Foster deserves credit for the win – he’s instilling a cultural shift in Westwood. On Friday, he didn’t force fancy ball. The Bruins played smash mouth and were led by a coach who willed his team to out-physical one of the Big Ten’s grittiest units.

Two wins removed from bowl eligibility, UCLA has just three games left in the season. And with a shot at beating a struggling Washington team in Seattle next weekend and an almost-guaranteed triumph against Fresno State on Nov. 30 the Bruins appear to be bowl bound.

Iowa out-Iowa’d

A glaring paradox among the Bruins this season has been UCLA’s ground attack crumbling under the watch of two former NFL running backs.

Foster and associate head coach and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy’s team had sat as the nation’s worst in rushing yards per game.

But Friday’s Bruins? A new beast entirely.

The better part of 2024 shoved the Bruins to a deserved 133rd rushing rank in the FBS, unable to generate any significant yardage. But an unrecognizable UCLA running back room ran the ball down Iowa’s throat under the Rose Bowl’s Friday night lights.

On Foster’s way out of his press conference, he kneeled down to the microphone to make an announcement.

“211 yards.”

UCLA piled up 211 rushing yards Friday – a dramatic turnaround from its 73.9-yard average through the season, itself a figure that would be over nine yards less if not for the team’s 139-yard showing against Nebraska on Nov. 2.

The Bruins didn’t require a flashy 50-yard run. They just needed grind-it-out, gritty runs – which they got in spades. The run game, and by extension, redshirt senior quarterback Ethan Garbers, benefited from it.

Junior running back T.J. Harden churned out 125 rushing yards on 20 carries for his 2024 breakout game and recorded the fourth 100-yard rushing outing of his career. Harden was the engine of UCLA’s ground assault, shredding tacklers and banging out yards after contact, ultimately converting a crucial seven first downs.

The Bruins’ rushing performance came against a defense that ranked No. 11 in the nation entering the affair, but Iowa has since fallen to 31st after being torn down at the Rose Bowl.

Iowa also boasts the Big Ten’s best running game. What Iowa was known for, UCLA became.

Linebacker U

UCLA’s potent defense shut down Iowa’s offense Friday and sparked the emergence of a triumvirate of linebackers.

After the Bruins lost key members of last year’s unit, senior Oluwafemi Oladejo, redshirt junior Carson Schwesinger and redshirt senior Kain Medrano have been at the center of everything. Claiming its stake as the team’s defensive backbone, the trio played with an edge that brought shades of UCLA’s past as a linebacking factory.

Medrano, a converted running back, was relentless in chasing down ball carriers. Midway through the second quarter, Iowa quarterback Brendan Sullivan pumped fake to his left, eyeing an escape route – only for karma to bite him in the back.

As Sullivan tucked the ball and attempted to scramble out of danger, Medrano forced the ball free with a well-timed strip out of the signal-caller’s hands to mark UCLA’s second takeaway of the stanza.

Whether you know him as “Captain America,” the Big Ten’s leader in solo tackles or a former walk-on, Schwesinger was all over the field against the Hawkeyes, flaunting his knack for reading the quarterback and jumping routes to finish with seven total tackles and two interceptions.

A physical freak of nature characterizes the third weapon of the Linebacker U. Oladejo – who stands at 6-foot-3, 250 pounds – made life miserable for Iowa’s quarterbacks, penetrating the backfield to rack up two sacks and four tackles for loss on the night.

Medrano, Schwesinger and Oladejo outplayed Iowa’s offense, dominating the line of scrimmage by creating negative plays and giving the Hawkeyes a taste of their own medicine.

Hawkeyes grounded, Bruins pound

There’s a good reason why people are saying Friday’s win was a “statement” for UCLA.

It wasn’t because of the team’s first Rose Bowl win under Foster or anything numbers could quantify.

It was a reflection of the team’s physicality – a kind of toughness that’s the hallmark of Big Ten football. The Bruins didn’t win by fluke, nor did they get there without a battle.

Iowa’s most formidable threat Friday was Kaleb Johnson, the running back who has proven a menace to the Big Ten with the second-most rushing yards and third-most rushing touchdowns in the nation.

Westwood held the key to his defeat.

Unlike any other team this season, UCLA’s front seven completely smothered Johnson and Iowa’s run game – which had been steamrolling opponents with at least 200-yard performances nearly every weekend. Defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe’s disciplined playcalling muffled Johnson’s barrage – which normally sees triple-digit yardage – to a season-low 49.

UCLA’s defensive line dominated the line of scrimmage, clogging gaps and forcing Iowa into uncomfortable situations. The running-focused Hawkeyes failed to dictate their own pace or lean on any sort of offensive line to wear the Bruins down.

When Iowa did dare to run, UCLA stacked the box and restricted its foes to just 2.6 yards per carry. The Hawkeyes’ reputation for mauling opponents on the ground evaporated in Pasadena.

Blunders still

Friday’s scoreboard doesn’t necessarily reflect the Bruins’ domination, but it is worth asking how they scraped past the Hawkeyes by just three points.

The Bruins were thumped 10-0 as they walked off the field after the first quarter – a silencing that was largely due to a pair of ill-timed interceptions.

UCLA’s first drive of the game spanned just three plays and negative four yards before Garbers’ attempt to offset lost yardage resulted in the Hawkeyes taking over at the Bruin 41-yard line to begin what became a touchdown drive.

The hosts’ ensuing possession concluded in a similar way. This time starting from deep in their own territory and gradually making headway against the Hawkeyes, two costly false-start penalties pushed them back 10 yards before Garbers’ misguided pass was easily picked off with the end zone in sight.

Ultimately, UCLA logged nine penalties for a loss of 84 yards alongside three turnovers.

Despite coming away victorious, the Bruins fell short of what could’ve been a rout and will have to hone in on their “discipline” pillar to keep bowl eligibility afloat.