LOS ANGELES — DeShaun Foster had known what it was like to take the field as a UCLA athlete. He had seen the game he loves from the other side of football as an assistant coach.

Yet, nothing could have prepared the Bruins’ head coach for the terrorizing weight of being in charge of the whole operation.

“I was scared,” Foster said, reminiscing on the feeling he felt before UCLA’s season opener at Hawai’i last year. “And I’ve never been scared on the football field. It was a nervous feeling just because it was brand new, and I’d never been in that position.”

Those nerves might have shown up on the field, too. The Bruins scraped by the Rainbow Warriors, 16-13, on a game-winning field goal from Mateen Bhaghani. In 2025, entering his second season coaching his alma mater, Foster says the ner

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