UCLA's DeShaun Foster makes absurd claim about blowout loss to Utah

UCLA Bruins head coach DeShaun Foster has left his Week 1 film study encouraged about the state of his team.

Foster is optimistic despite the 43-10 loss to the Utah Utes to kick off the 2025 season. At one point in the second quarter, the Bruins found themselves down, 20-0.

According to Foster, he left the game feeling disappointed, but film study cheered him up a bit.

He believes his team was "close" to being in that game.

“That we were close,” Foster said of his takeaways in a recent media availability (h/t On3). “Like, it wasn’t exactly what I thought. You know, I was a little more disappointed right after the game, and then, seeing the film, it brought a little more life into me. Just because, if we can execute? And there’s a lot of things that we can actually fix. So, that’s the bright spot I saw in that.”

To be fair to Foster, it's a coach's job to get a team out of a rut once they've been jammed down into it. There certainly is a bit of coach-speak going on here, and that can't be held against Foster.

He needs to get his team to believe in itself because things aren't going to get any easier with a game at UNLV up next on the schedule. The Rebels may be a Mountain West squad, but they have a quarterback in Anthony Colandrea, who transferred in from Virginia, who has led them to a 2-0 record so far.

To say that UCLA was close, though? That's just delusional.

New quarterback Nico Iamaleava, supposedly a star, completed just 11-of-22 passes for 136 yards and a touchdown with an interception. He led the Bruins in rushing with 47 yards, but that came on 13 carries. He averaged just 3.6 yards per carry.

Utah put up 492 total yards of offense compared to just 220 from UCLA. The Bruins went just 2-of-11 on third downs, and they lost the time-of-possession battle, 37:28 to 22:32.

UCLA didn't just lose. The Bruins were dominated by Utah.

It's absurd for Foster to claim anything otherwise, motivational tactic or not.