Maryland Football Opponent Overview: UCLA Bruins

John Gugs
10 hours ago
4 min read

Last year, Maryland football traveled out west to Pasadena to take on UCLA where they ended up losing 20-17 in the final seconds of the game. This season, the Bruins will travel out to College Park looking to make it two wins in a row over the Terps as both teams open up conference play to close out September.

UCLA is coming off of a very disappointing season in 2025. The Bruins started 0-4 with losses to two Group of Six schools. The Bruins then became the surprise team in the country and went on a three game win streak, including wins over Penn State and Maryland. Then Indiana brought them back to earth in a blowout loss as the Bruins finished the season on a five game losing streak and finished the season 3-9.

The Bruins fired DeShaun Foster after losing their first three games, and followed that up with hiring former JMU head coach Bob Chesney. Chesney has a career head coaching record of 132-52 in his four stops. Chesney has coached at every level of NCAA football and has been successful. At JMU, Chesney went 21-6 in two seasons including leading them to the CFP in his second season. Chesney will be the fourth straight newly signed head coach that the Terps will face to start the 2026 season.

Offense

Star Players: QB Nico Iamaleava, RB Wayne Knight, WR Landon Ellis

Scoring: 18.2 ppg

Passing: 180.3 ypg

Rushing: 139.7 ypg

Turnovers: 1.1 turnovers per game

Last season, the UCLA offense overall was fairly dreadful barely averaging over 300 yards per game and not even scoring 20 points per game. However, with Chesney taking over, he brings in a rebuilt offense with a couple key returners back as well looking to replicate the offensive fire power he had at JMU.

The offense once again will be led by Iamaleava. Last season, Iamaleava had a 64.4% completion percentage while throwing for 1,928 yards, 13 touchdowns, and seven interceptions. However, something that made Iamaleava dangerous at times is his running ability. The dual threat QB ran for 505 yards and four touchdowns last season, all while also being sacked 25 times which was third in the Big Ten last season. Iamaleava will look to lead a revamped offense in 2026 and bring UCLA back to its winning ways.

Knight is arguably the biggest star player that followed Chesney from JMU. In 2025, Knight finished with 1,373 yards while averaging 6.6 yards per carry and scored nine rushing touchdowns. Knight is also a threat to catch the ball out of the backfield adding 40 receptions for 397 yards and a touchdown. In 2025, Knight was a second team All-American while earning himself first team All-SBC, and was a Paul Hornung award finalist. The backfield duo of Knight and Iamaleava could very well be a dangerous duo in 2026.

Along with Knight, another highly rated former Duke that followed Chesney is Ellis, who finished 2025 with 624 receiving yards for five touchdowns off of 36 receptions. Ellis was named to the third team All-SBC last season while leading the Dukes in receiving yards. Ellis will look to lead the receiving room along with Mikey Matthews who is one of the lone top returners from last year's receiving room.

Defense

Star Players: Edge Sahir West, LB Sammy Omosigho, CB DJ Barksdale

Scoring: 33.4 ppg

Passing: 196.6 ypg

Rushing: 190.4 ypg

Turnovers: .8 turnovers per game

Along with Knight, West -- who held a Maryland offer out of Mount St. Joseph (Md.) -- has been regarded as one of the best transfers to follow Chesney from JMU. As a redshirt freshman last season, West finished the season with 45 total tackles, 14 TFLs, seven sacks, four pass deflections, and a forced fumble. After his fantastic season, West earned himself freshman first team All-American, Sun Belt freshman of the year, second team All-SBC, and was JMU’s defensive lineman of the year. Last year, the UCLA defense only had ten sacks all season. In 2026, expect West and many of the other transfers brought in to help increase that number.

Omosigho is ranked as one of the best incoming transfers for the Bruins this season. The linebacker from Oklahoma finished 2025 with 50 total tackles with three pass deflections, two sacks, and a fumble recovery. While he has only started three games in his career so far, Omosigho will look to take his starting role by the horns and lead this new look Bruin defense in 2026.

Barksdale is the third of the high end transfers to follow Chesney from JMU. Last season, Barksdale led the Dukes in pass deflections with 12 while adding 36 total tackles, three TFLs, and two interceptions to his name. Barksdale’s 2025 season led to him earning third team All-SBC honors and a three star transfer portal rating after entering the portal. Barksdale will look to lead a DB room that only had 38 pass deflections and four interceptions in 2025 and turn things around in 2026.

What to watch for

UCLA, like the Terps' first two FBS opponents, will have lots of turnover on the roster with all four of their first opponents having newly hired head coaches. Meanwhile, the Terps only brought in 12 transfers outside of the QB position. The battle between a team like the Terps that returns more than half of their key players on both sides of the ball against a team that will have tons of new faces on both sides of the ball early on in the season will be very interesting. While the Terps should look like the team with the better chemistry and look like a more gelled squad, they can also struggle with preparation with not having a lot of film to go off of with there being so much turnover on the other teams. This will be a game where the coaching could make a big difference for either team.

Related Links