PASADENA, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Wayne Knight scored three touchdowns after a scoreless first half and UCLA defeated San Diego State 28-10 on Saturday to win its home opener under new coach Bob Chesney.<\/p>\n
Knight scored on runs of 8 yards in the third and 7 and 36 yards in the fourth, the James Madison transfer’s second straight game with three TDs. He had that many in a season-opening win at California last week.<\/p>\n
Knight scored for the second time after Josh Hunter’s face-mask penalty at the Aztecs 7-yard line resulted in an automatic first down. <\/p>\n
Jalvian Thomas added a 1-yard TD in between Knight’s two fourth-quarter scores for the Bruins (2-0).<\/p>\n
The Bruins didn’t give up a touchdown until the game’s final 2:28 when Jackson Ford caught a 19-yard pass from Jayden Denegal. <\/p>\n
The Aztecs (1-1) first got on the board with a 46-yard field goal by Cooper Dileva to trail 7-3 in the fourth. <\/p>\n
Coming off the 45-24 road win over Cal, UCLA fans came out to the Rose Bowl in greater numbers than last season to check out the buzz generated by Chesney’s hire from James Madison.<\/p>\n
But what they got in the first half was nothing.<\/p>\n
The teams combined for 98 points in winning their respective openers, but neither could get untracked after exchanging punts in the opening quarter.<\/p>\n
The biggest play of the first half was Nico Iamaleava’s 45-yard pass to Brian Rowe Jr. for a first down in the second quarter. The Bruins eventually got the ball to the 2-yard line on the drive, but Iamaleava was intercepted in the end zone by Mike Lindsay after underthrowing to a wide-open Brayden Loftin.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe takeaway<\/p>\n
San Diego St.: The Aztecs proved pesky for much of the game, but had only two plays past the 50-yard line until late in the second half.<\/p>\n
UCLA: The Bruins are 2-0 for the first time since 2023. <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUp next <\/p>\n
San Diego State hosts James Madison next Saturday.<\/p>\n
UCLA hosts Purdue next Saturday. <\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
\n https:\/\/Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here, visit the Top 25 here and see AP\u2019s full college football coverage here\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PASADENA, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Wayne Knight scored three touchdowns after a scoreless first half and UCLA defeated San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[27901,5167,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-462223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-ap-sports","tag-associated-press","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}