UCLA vs. Maryland: Can the Bruins maintain their new ‘standard’?
Historians looking back at the 2025 UCLA football season will peg the Penn State game as the Bruins’ first victory.
In ways large and small, they would be wrong.
When Tim Skipper took over the team for the first time a month ago, he put a new opponent on the table: the locker room. The interim coach showed the players photos of how it would look, including the lockers and surrounding floor.
They cleaned the place and it has been clean ever since. Kind of like the Bruins play that started with the Penn State game.
“I think a clean locker room makes you happier,” Skipper explained this week. “It shows team discipline and shows that you can win off the field, so now you can move on and get on the field.”
Skipper’s other primary motivational tool—besides his highly transferable energy—is logos. He began by asking his players to do everything in their power to win. After the Bruins’ win over Penn State, he asked the players if they were one-hit wonders. Now, with his players proving they know what it takes to win after a crushing loss at Michigan State, he’s asking them to maintain their approach.
At their meeting Sunday, the Bruins watched their new slogan — the standard is the standard — on a big screen.
“We’ve identified the style of play that we want to be, and our job now is to maintain the standard, you know, and play with that fanatical effort, play with the fundamentals, and be smart, you know, all those things that we have to continue to do,” Skipper said. “But it’s not like something that’s going to come out on Saturday. You have to practice it. You have to work at it and not just talk about it.”
Can the Bruins keep it up after two straight wins? Here are five things to watch Saturday afternoon in the Rose Bowl when UCLA (2-4 overall, 2-1 Big Ten) faces Maryland (4-2, 1-2):