No. 23 UCLA football (4-0, 2-0 Big Ten) achieved its best start to a season since 2022 by dominating Maryland (2-2, 0-1) 54-3 Saturday afternoon at SECU Stadium. The 4-0 career start for coach Bob Chesney makes him the first Bruin head honcho to do so since 1949. With UCLA now heading into a bye week ranked for the first time in three seasons, Daily Bruin Sports editor Jacob Nguyen provides his five takeaways from the Bruins’ recent victory.

[Related: UCLA football keeps winning streak, takes down Maryland 54-3]

Wash(ed)ington

“Washed” is usually used as a term of criticism against older players who are shadows of their former selves.

And while Maryland quarterback Malik Washington is just a sophomore, the Bruin secondary made him look like a 40-year-old NFL veteran Saturday – and not in a good way.

Despite the Terrapins entering their first conference match with a strong air raid offense – with Washington having thrown for nearly 900 yards alongside six touchdowns and zero interceptions and Maryland boasting a pair of 230-plus-yard receivers – the offense was a turtle shell of itself.

Many online have already gone as far as to say the two pick-sixes – part of four total interceptions – that Washington threw on consecutive drives to start Maryland’s third quarter were some of the worst throws they have ever seen in college football.

While the first interception by senior defensive back Ta’Shawn James may not have been that egregious – having been the result of a slight underthrow – the following turnover taken by senior defensive back Scooter Jackson went to a wide-open spot on the field which the intended receiver was far past.

I don’t know if that was miscommunication on one person’s end, both the quarterback’s and the receiver’s faults or just a complete mishap by the offensive coordinator. Whatever it was, it’s drawing comparisons to several types of sandwiches on social media.

Plays like that exemplified a night in which Maryland just couldn’t find its bearing on offense. The squad cobbled together 181 yards of total offense, with passes consistently broken up, pockets collapsing and Terrapin receivers getting smothered.

Interestingly enough, Saturday’s game saw Washington post the worst completion percentage of his young career.

The opponent that forced his second-worst performance? The Bruins last season.

Rushing offense. What’s new?

Whether I’m editing these stories or writing them myself, I simply can’t avoid talking about the running game in one way or another. I hate sounding like a broken record, but can you really blame me?

After a scoreless first quarter in which the Bruins had less than 20 rushing yards, the squad took off. Anyone who has watched the team through the first few games of the regular season knows that UCLA is always bound to hit the ground running – literally.

The ground assault began on the Bruins’ opening possession of the second quarter, when a Wildcat to Wayne Knight on a fourth-and-short turned into a 45-yard run through the entire defense for what would be the fifth-year’s ninth rushing touchdown of the year – surpassing the team’s season total rushing touchdown mark from 2025.

On the following drive, another 33-yard Knight run set up fifth-year Anthony Woods for a power drive up the middle for his fourth touchdown of the season. Not long after, senior Jaivian Thomas joined the fun with his own three-yard score after a run-pass option put the Bruins within the 5-yard line.

Three possessions. Three running backs. Three touchdowns.

There’s something beautiful about being able to cycle through three names that could all be effective RB1s on any other roster. Keeping each guy’s legs fresh throughout a game and the season at large has paid dividends, resulting in consistent execution behind a near-impenetrable offensive line.

This running back room is like Cerberus, and I’ll keep quoting myself until proven otherwise.

Locksley’s job is not locked up

It shouldn’t take Maryland’s student section chanting “Fire Locksley” for someone to realize that the squad’s head honcho is in the hot seat.

And that chair is ablaze.

Michael Locksley suffered his third 50-plus-point loss as head coach, with his two prior defeats coming in his first year at the Terrapins’ helm. In his head coaching career, Locksley has a sub-35% winning percentage, including a 35-43 record with Maryland.

Of course, he’s not the one throwing the picks, nor is he the one leaving guys open for easy runs. But he is the one setting the standard and outlining the scheme that should’ve better matched up against the Bruins.

All throughout the match, nearly everything that could’ve gone wrong seemed to go wrong. Offensively, receivers couldn’t get open, and, if they did, Washington seemed to lose all sense of accuracy he flashed in his prior three games. Defensively, not a single level of the field seemed to show resistance, with Maryland giving up one explosive play after another.

So when a team’s entire foundation seems to crumble, it’s inevitable that the head coach gets, at the very least, questionable looks. Because how you recover from a game where you only either turned the ball over or punted, save for one single field goal, is beyond me.

If Saturday’s affair showed anything, it’s that there was a major discrepancy in coaching execution.

Compliments to the chef

Chesney has been adamant about playing “complementary” football.

It started when the defense shone brightly against San Diego State, but the offense stalled in a drought through the entire first half.

It came up the following week against Purdue when the Bruins seemingly reversed their script from the week prior, putting up 52 points while also surrendering 38 to the Big Ten team with the worst 2025 record.

Against Maryland, UCLA cooked – on both sides.

The Bruins have scored 50-plus points twice since 2023, and both instances have come under Chesney this season. On the other end, the Terrapins’ three points were the fewest the Bruins have allowed in a match in over a decade.

One could argue this is the most complete game UCLA has put together all season, or even the last few seasons. And it’d be far from ridiculous to say that.

It wasn’t just the defense consistently pressuring Washington and denying passing lanes, or the offense firing on all cylinders. Even the special teams stood out, with sophomore punter Curtis Gerrand kicking for an average of 46 yards against the Terrapins, and the rest of the unit preventing any meaningful returns.

And the scary thing is that the Bruins know they have yet to reach their full potential.

Swag surfing in the rain

A skeptic might have taken the 1.5-point odds in favor of UCLA going into the Week 4 matchup with a large grain of salt. And I certainly did, despite predicting the Bruins would come away with the victory.

So if you told me a few days ago that my one-score projection would turn into an almost 60-point victory – had it not been for a single field goal and a fumble right when sophomore running back Karson Cox looked like he was going to run it home in garbage time – I would’ve called your bluff.

I held Maryland to a much higher standard than what they showed me on Saturday, and one could’ve even had some caution considering the Bruins were traveling across the entire country to play in a rainy climate almost unfathomable in Pasadena.

Yet rain or shine, the Bruins maintained the same level of energy in the game and along the sideline that they’ve displayed all season – dancing and cheering through each possession and timeout no matter the score.

The culture is real, folks. And it’s gotten every single player, coach and fan bought into it in Westwood.

If the vibes continue like this – at a level unseen in recent memory – the Bruins could make noise when they march up to Oregon where they’ll take on their first ranked squad of the year.