This post was updated Oct. 16 at 11:07 a.m.

There are three types of college football teams.

The Goliaths: Squads with no more than four losses and lead their respective conferences with balanced, consistent and explosive rosters – battling for a bowl game or a College Football Playoff berth.

On the opposite end are the cellar dwellers – units stuck in despair, wasting away at the bottom of their conference, usually devoid of an identity, defining player or even a head coach.

Then there are teams in the middle of the pack. They are never good enough to give fans hope of a prosperous December and January, but never bad enough to undergo a program makeover. These teams will win some games they shouldn’t and lose contests they had no business losing.

I mean, look at the 2024 Bruins.

Every team inevitably falls into one of those three categories. But the 2025 iteration of UCLA football leaves me motionless, confused and speechless.

Two weeks ago, I said this was one of the worst teams in the country.

[Related: Gameday Predictions: UCLA vs. Penn State]

And I definitely was not the only one.

A plane circling the Rose Bowl carried the message “Fire UCLA AD Martin Jarmond” before UCLA’s Oct. 4 contest against then-No. 7 Penn State. A UCLA flag hung upside down – the international sign of distress – at the Pasadena tailgates. And fans and alumni were not afraid to voice their opinion on the state of Bruin football.

“A school in Southern California with the history of UCLA should never have a football program this bad,” said UCLA alumnus Greg Moser before UCLA football’s matchup against then-No. 7 Penn State.

The team’s season-opening performances were followed by three coaches leaving Westwood. The Bruins racked up enough penalties that people poked fun at the first pillar of former head coach DeShaun Foster’s notorious D.R.E. mantra.

The defense could not stop a nose bleed as opposing offenses carved through the front seven and took advantage of the Bruins’ weak secondary. And the offense – reloaded with a former five-star quarterback and coaching prodigy at offensive coordinator – looked even worse than the year before under the command of signal caller Ethan Garbers and coordinator Eric Bieniemy.

But on that fateful matchup against the Nittany Lions, something clicked.

The UCLA defense held Michigan State to just 13 points and 253 total offensive yards – the Spartans’ lowest mark in both categories this season. Similarly, the offense took off under the play calling of assistant head coach and tight ends coach Jerry Neuheisel.

In fact, the Bruins scored more in Neuheisel’s first six quarters at the helm than they did under former offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Tino Sunseri across his first four games combined.

The Bruins do not just look improved – they look like an entirely different squad.

Fans and football aficionados alike do not know what to think of what this squad is. Are they still the team from four weeks ago that caused many fans – including Foster – to call this team the lowest UCLA has seen in recent memory? Or are they the Goliath-slayers who shocked the world taking down the Nittany Lions on Oct. 4?

My prediction: They are somewhere in the middle.

It would be wrong for me to say that the current Bruins are anything close to what they were after their loss to the New Mexico Lobos on Sep. 12. But I would be equally naive to say this team could make it anywhere near the Big Ten championship game.

That being said, I do think a bowl game lies ahead.

UCLA needs to win four out of its last six matchups to become eligible. Its next contest against Maryland will mark the team’s first home game since upsetting Penn State, and it will probably be the easiest matchup left on a gauntlet of a regular season slate.

And if the Bruins can defeat the Terrapins come Saturday, they may be the hottest team in the country – riding a three-game win streak into Bloomington to fight the undefeated Hoosiers for what could be slated as a Big Noon Kickoff game.

No. 3 Indiana’s remaining 2025 slate is nearly a cakewalk, and somehow, UCLA may be the toughest game left on the calendar. The Bruins broke the Nittany Lions on Oct. 4. While the Nittany Lions’ loss to the Wildcats and then their firing of coach James Franklin may delegitimize the Bruins’ win, remember that Penn State went toe-to-toe, double overtime, with No. 8 Oregon just three weeks ago.

No one is expecting the Bruins to win. Regardless, the Hoosiers probably wish they had played the Bruins three weeks ago. And if UCLA can walk into Memorial Stadium and sneak away with a win, then it will be .500 with a 4-1 conference record, boasting two top-10 upsets.

In some scenarios, the Bruins could be ranked – and in others, they could even see a college game day in Columbus against the No. 1 Buckeyes on Nov. 15, if they win every game leading up to the battle at Ohio Stadium.

You could say this is a fantasy only seen in books and movies – and it very well could be. But the entire nation thought the Bruins were dead after starting the season 0-3, failing to ever hold the lead. And everyone thought the nail was in the coffin after that streak extended another week with a loss to Northwestern.

The Bruins were even 7.5-point underdogs to the Spartans – and we all saw how that went.

[Related: UCLA football garners another win in 38-13 game against Michigan State]

“That was the message starting on Sunday, and we preached it every single day moving up,” said UCLA football interim head coach Tim Skipper on whether the team was a one-hit wonder. “We just wanted to see who we really were. That was the whole thing about it, and we wanted to come out and play 60 minutes of football, and we did that today with straining. It’s not being one-hit wonders, it’s all those things – we’re putting them all into the games now.”

I’m not saying this team is going to walk all over Indiana or close out the season. But this squad is not a one-hit wonder. The Penn State win was not some miracle – and this is not the team that saw all hell break loose just three weeks ago.

This is an entirely new Bruin squad. One that carries a sort of spunk and swagger. One that has confidence and knows they can hang with the best of the best. One that has already shocked the world and wants to do it again. One that wants to flip the script and craft a story many found unimaginable.

Before the season started, I said the Bruins needed just one successful season to flip the culture of the UCLA football program.

[Related: Dully’s Drop: Foster’s vision for UCLA football identity can be realized with Nico Iamaleava]

And after potentially the worst start in program history, everyone turned their back on the program.

Fans stopped going to games and refused to even enter the stadium despite being at the tailgates just outside, causing the country to note all of the empty bleachers in Pasadena. Just 39,256 fans filled the Rose Bowl when UCLA beat its first top 10 team since 2010.

But after the Bruins followed their historic victory with a beating of the Spartans, they have reignited what many thought was a burnt-out wick. And with hope comes belief. And with belief comes passion.

“A winner will pack the stadium no matter what,” said decade-long UCLA fan Rolend Grivalja before the Penn State victory. “The Dodgers weren’t selling out when they weren’t playing well, and the Dodgers sell out every year. This city is a city of front-runners for good and bad. That’s the number one thing. I don’t think anything else would fill the stands more than winning.”

UCLA can continue a voyage no one thought possible with a win against Maryland, simultaneously flipping the script on what the season was supposed to be and bringing the Bruin faithful back into the arms of its teams and its school.

And that journey starts Saturday.