{"id":308710,"date":"2025-11-23T09:52:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T09:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/308710\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T09:52:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T09:52:06","slug":"botched-ucla-fake-field-goal-turns-into-washington-fumble-return-td","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/308710\/","title":{"rendered":"Botched UCLA fake field goal turns into Washington fumble-return TD"},"content":{"rendered":"

Madness has taken over the late night game Saturday between Washington<\/a> and UCLA<\/a>. A botched fake field goal attempt from the Bruins turned into a touchdown for the Huskies, a huge momentum swing in the game. <\/p>\n

The play occurred in the second quarter as UCLA lined up to kick the field goal for what looked like it would be its first points of the game. But the Bruins had a trick up their sleeve as the long snapper tried to pitch it back to kicker Mateen Bhaghani<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, the pitch was a bit off and Bhaghani couldn\u2019t reach it as it fell to the ground and became a live ball. Alex McLaughlin<\/a> scooped it up and took it 59 yards back the other way for the touchdown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a result of the play, UCLA found itself down 20-0 when it could have potentially been trailing only 13-3 if it kicked the field goal and made it. Instead, Washington got a big boost right before halftime. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was awesome,\u201d Huskies coach Jedd Fisch<\/a> said at halftime. \u201cWe talk about it all the time, \u2018Make a play on special teams, change the game.\u2019 Pretty cool that we did that to go up 20-0. We missed way too many opportunities on offense. Way too many guys that we just missed throws on. Then defensively is playing lights out right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

It marked the second defensive touchdown of the season for McLaughlin, who also had an interception returned for a score earlier this year. He leads Washington with 72 tackles on the season. <\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t the only turnovers the Washington forced in the first half against UCLA, however. The Huskies also forced a pair of fumbles out of quarterback Nico Iamaleava<\/a>, bringing the turnover total to four. <\/p>\n

McLaughlin\u2019s play gives Washington a big cushion to work with to start the second half as it look to hold on for the win. As Fisch mentioned, their offense hasn\u2019t even played up to its full potential yet, so if it finds its rhythm that could really open up the lead even more. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Madness has taken over the late night game Saturday between Washington and UCLA. A botched fake field goal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-308710","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-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308710","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=308710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}