UCLA Bruins Look to Exceed Low Expectations in 2024

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Heading into the 2024 college football season, expectations for the UCLA Bruins are decidedly low. Although the Bruins finished their 2023 campaign with an 8-5 record and a victory over Boise State in the LA Bowl, the team has undergone significant change.

Following the 2023, season, the UCLA Bruins suffered significant losses from their roster and coaching staff. Coach Chip Kelly left to take the offensive coordinator position at Ohio State, and defensive coordinator D'Anton Lynn moved across Los Angeles to take the same position with rival USC. Furthermore, only nine starters from last year's squad are returning.

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Low Expectations

Sports analysts and commentators have uniformly prognosticated a bleak season for the UCLA Bruins in their inaugural year in the Big Ten Conference.

Athlon Sports recently predicted UCLA finishing 14th out of the 18 teams in the B1G, ahead of only the four conference members from Illinois and Indiana—the Northwestern Wildcats, the Fighting Illini of Illinois, the Indiana Hoosiers and the Purdue Boilermakers.

Sports Illustrated expressed a similar assessment, picking the Bruins to finish 15th in the conference.

CBS Sports forecasted UCLA winning only five games in the 2024 season, with six losses against B1G opponents.

2024 UCLA Bruins

UCLA hired one of its own—former All-American running back DeShaun Foster—to replace Kelly as the head coach in Westwood, Calif. Bruins fans are hopeful that Foster will perform better as a coach than he did as a spokesperson for the team in his awkward appearance at Big Ten Media Days in Indianapolis.

Joining Foster is former NFL assistant Eric Bieniemy, who the Bruins hired to run the offense led by returning quarterback Ethan Garbers and junior running back TJ Harden, who appeared in all 13 of UCLA's games last year. The Bruins also have playmakers on the outside, including receivers Logan Loya and J. Michael Sturdivant. For the Bruins to have a successful season, the offensive production needs to step up from last year, when the team averaged only 5.02 yards per snap in the Pac-12 Conference.

Defense was a strong point for the Bruins last year, but the leader of that defense is gone as are most of the key players. UCLA hired Ikaika Malloe to take over for Lynn, who was followed to USC by two stalwarts of last year's UCLA secondary—Kamari Ramsey and John Humphrey. Only three of the Bruins' top-12 tacklers from 2023 are back.

While the expectations for UCLA in 2024 are low, Bruins fans hope the team can use uninspiring predictions as a motivation to thrive.