{"id":308475,"date":"2025-11-23T06:44:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T06:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/308475\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T06:44:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T06:44:07","slug":"nico-iamaleava-injury-update-ucla-qb-leaves-game-after-helmet-to-helmet-hit-vs-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/308475\/","title":{"rendered":"Nico Iamaleava injury update: UCLA QB leaves game after helmet-to-helmet hit vs. Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"

UCLA<\/a> quarterback Nico Iamaleava<\/a> has left Saturday night\u2019s game against Washington<\/a> due to an apparent injury. The injury occurred when Iamaleava was sacked and appeared to take helmet-to-helmet contact.<\/p>\n

Prior to his exit, Iamaleava was 16-of-26 for 69 yards passing and no touchdowns with two fumbles. He was immediately taken to the injury tent with UCLA trailing 27-0 and 8:21 remaining in the third quarter.<\/p>\n

Backup quarterback Luke Duncan took the field when the Bruins began their next offensive possession. Iamaleava remained in the injury tent as sideline reporter Caroline Pineda had little update on his status.<\/p>\n

\u201cNico Iamaleava walked into the tent under his own power,\u201d Pineda said. \u201cHe has remained there for over 10 minutes now. Backup quarterback Luke Duncan was warming up for the majority of that series. We\u2019ll keep you posted on Nico\u2019s status.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duncan started one game previously this season when Iamaleava was out with a concussion against Ohio State<\/a> in Week 12. He finished 16-of-24 passing for 154 yards and a touchdown with no interceptions as UCLA lost 48-10.<\/p>\n

On his first drive entering in place of Iamaleava, Duncan led UCLA to a touchdown. He went 2-of-4 for 61 yards and connected with Mikey Matthews<\/a> on the 37-yard score. <\/p>\n

Shortly after that score, Iamaleava was seen walking back to the locker room. There was still no word as to the nature of the injury, but that certainly doesn\u2019t bode well for his chances to return to this game. <\/p>\n

More on Nico Iamaleava<\/p>\n

Iamaleava transferred to UCLA this offseason after spending the first two years of his college career at Tennessee<\/a>. He has thrown for 1,659 yards and 12 touchdowns to seven interceptions this year as the Bruins entered this contest with a 3-7 (3-4 Big Ten) record.<\/p>\n

Last season, Iamaleava helped lead the Volunteers to an appearance in the College Football Playoff. The former five-star threw for 2,616 yards and 19 touchdowns to five interceptions and entered this year with expectations of being one of the best quarterbacks in the country. <\/p>\n

Unfortunately, an NIL dispute led to him parting ways with Tennessee, but he still had his sights set high at UCLA. It hasn\u2019t quite gone according to plan so far though, with coach Deshaun Foster<\/a> being fired early amid an 0-4 start. <\/p>\n

We\u2019ll hope for the best when it comes to an update on Iamaleava\u2019s health. Interim coach Tim Skipper will likely have more information on the injury postgame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava has left Saturday night\u2019s game against Washington due to an apparent injury. The injury…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,7324,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-308475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-nico-iamaleava-23-warren","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}