Nico Iamaleava shines in crunch time in UCLA comeback win over Maryland

Tim Skipper took a deep breath. What else could he do?

His quarterback had just clutched his right knee and needed assistance to make it off the field with a little more than two minutes left in a taut game in which his team appeared on the verge of losing its magic touch. Skipper had been in enough of these situations to know that sometimes injuries that look scary turn out just fine, so the UCLA interim coach inhaled and waited for the medical staff to render a verdict.

Once Skipper saw Nico Iamaleava starting to walk around the Rose Bowl sideline, his facial expression no longer transfixed in a grimace, the coach figured a team in need of a late break might get one.

“I was like, man, we have a shot here, we have a shot,” Skipper said. “And then they cleared him and I was like, all right, let’s go.”

Having already engineered one fourth-quarter scoring drive, Iamealeava needed to lead another with the score tied against Maryland and only 35 seconds left Saturday evening.

In just four plays, a warp-speed drive that started at UCLA’s 27-yard line ended at the Maryland five after two pass completions and a hard-charging run by Anthony Frias II in which the reserve running back refused to be brought down, spinning and breaking tackles on the way to a 35-yard gain.

Kicker Mateen Bhaghani took it from there, nailing a 23-yard field goal with two seconds left to give the Bruins a 20-17 victory after the Terrapins couldn’t conjure a miracle on the ensuing kickoff.

And so the fun rolls on for a team that has gone from 0-4 to the cusp of .500 after a third consecutive victory.

It may have seemed hard to imagine a month ago, but a national spotlight will fall on the Bruins (3-4 overall, 3-1 Big Ten) next weekend when they face No. 3 Indiana on the road as part of Fox’s “Big Noon” showcase game.

“That is awesome,” said Skipper, who has won three of four games since replacing DeShaun Foster. “It means we’re doing something right.”

After winning in a barnburner against Penn State and a blowout against Michigan State, UCLA needed a comeback against the Terrapins to continue its improbable midseason resurgence. Skipper discovered once more that his players don’t lack resolve, no matter the situation.

“It’s all about belief,” Skipper said. “The guys believe. There’s nothing that happens throughout the game that’s going to take our confidence away.”

With the Bruins trailing 10-7 and less than five minutes to play, they turned to the quarterback who had been shaky most of the day, having two passes intercepted and losing a fumble on a play in which his arm was hit while in the throwing motion.

Things were about to finally tilt in the quarterback’s favor.

Facing a fourth-and-10 near midfield, Iamaleava connected with wide receiver Kwazi Gilmer on a 16-yard gain, with an additional 15 yards tacked on for a targeting penalty on the Terrapins (4-3, 1-3).

Three plays later, Iamaleava zipped a 14-yard pass to Mikey Matthews cutting toward a corner of the end zone, pushing the Bruins into a 14-10 lead in what felt like a destiny fulfilled to the slot receiver.

“Oh, I just seen man coverage,” Matthews said, “and I knew I was going to score.”

The situation improved for UCLA when defensive back Scooter Jackson intercepted a pass on Maryland’s next possession, running with teammates into the far end zone to celebrate. After Iamaleava hurt his knee shortly thereafter when he was driven into the turf and departed, Bhaghani kicked a 42-yard field goal to extend the Bruins’ cushion to 17-10 with 2:04 left.

Maybe UCLA wouldn’t need its quarterback again.

But a Bruins defense that had been stout all day, giving up just a field goal, suddenly drooped in the final two minutes.

Maryland drove 75 yards in only 84 seconds for the tying score, quarterback Malik Washington connecting with Jalil Farooq on an eight-yard touchdown catch with 40 seconds left.

Back onto the field came Iamaleava, who finished the game completing 21 of 35 passes for 221 yards.

An incompletion was followed by back-to-back completions to Titus Mokiao-Atimalala, the first going for 14 yards and the second for 19. Then came that gritty run from Frias, who was getting extra carries because of injuries to teammates Anthony Woods and Jaivian Thomas.

It was another storybook development for a player who, nearly a decade earlier, stood outside the Rose Bowl holding a sign over his head that read, “One day I will play here!”

He did far more than appear inside the storied stadium Saturday.

In the stuff of dreams, Frias scored on a 55-yard run early in the second quarter after cutting one way and then the other before slipping a tackle inside the 10-yard line to give UCLA a 7-3 lead.

A big Christian McCaffrey fan who had painted his bare chest with a red “S” on the day of Stanford’s 2016 Rose Bowl victory over Iowa, Frias celebrated his first UCLA touchdown — and his team’s longest scoring run of the season — by high-stepping behind the end zone before slapping hands with a Bruins fan.

“It means the world to me,” Frias said of his success. “I was able to get an opportunity and make the most out of it. Thankful for my coaches for letting me do that tonight.”

Frias’ final run gave him a career-high 97 rushing yards on only four carries, the Bruins needing every yard on a day they came nowhere near the 40 points they had averaged in their previous two games with Jerry Neuheisel as the playcaller.

But UCLA enjoyed the same ending, water flying into the air amid a jubilant locker room thanks in large part to a quarterback who found a way even when it looked like he might not be given the chance.

“Ultimate competitors compete,” Skipper said, “and he didn’t want to come out, he went in there and he did his thing.”