Historians looking back at UCLA’s 2025 football season will peg the Penn State game as the Bruins’ first victory.
In ways both large and small, they will be wrong.
When Tim Skipper first took over the team a month ago, he placed a new opponent on the schedule: the locker room. The interim coach showed players pictures of how it should look, including the lockers and the surrounding floor.
They scrubbed the place and it’s been spotless ever since. Sort of like the Bruins’ play starting with that Penn State game.
“I think a clean locker room makes you a lot happier,” Skipper explained this week. “It shows team discipline and it shows you can win off the field, so now you can go ahead and get on the field.”
Skipper’s other primary motivational device — besides his highly transmissible energy — has been slogans. He started by telling his players to strain, to give everything they had in the pursuit of winning. After the Bruins beat Penn State, he asked players whether they were one-hit wonders. Now, his players having established they know what it takes to win following a smackdown of Michigan State, he’s asking them to maintain their approach.
At their Sunday meeting, the Bruins saw their new mantra — the standard is the standard — on a big screen.
“We have identified a style of play that we want to be, and it’s our job now to keep the standard the standard, you know, play with that fanatical effort, play with fundamentals, being smart, you know, all those things we just have to continue to do,” Skipper said. “But it’s not like something that’s just going to show up on Saturday. You have to practice about it. You have to work on it and not just talk about it.”
Can the Bruins keep it up after two consecutive victories? Here are five things to watch Saturday afternoon at the Rose Bowl when UCLA (2-4 overall, 2-1 Big Ten) faces Maryland (4-2, 1-2):
It was as startling as seeing a bear swimming in a backyard pool.
Travis Russell, the 40-year-old Jesuit priest who’s president at Verbum Dei High, was carrying around a Craftsman tool box as if he were the school’s handyman. He pulled out a hammer to demonstrate he knows what he’s doing.
Verbum Dei president Father Travis Russell finally got around to putting up a photo of new Pope Leo XIV.
(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)
“I had to hang up a picture of the new pope,” he said.
It’s all hands on deck at “The Verb,” a beacon of hope for many in South Los Angeles. With an enrollment of 310 students, the all-boys Catholic school in Watts has a tuition of just $4,000, with most families paying $1,200 thanks to assistance from a corporate work study program and other Catholic scholarship funds.
Once a powerhouse in basketball in the 1970s with the likes of Raymond Lewis, David Greenwood and Roy Hamilton, the school canceled its football season after four games in 2024 because of a lack of players. It was a decision made by Russell, who believed his school needed to start over.
He hired as head coach Gary Parks, who was an assistant for Verbum Dei’s 2005 championship football team and is a Verbum Dei grad. Russell hired another Verbum Dei grad, Darius Spates, to be athletic director. Parks hired five assistants who are Verbum Dei grads. Everyone decided to return to football slowly, so the team won’t play its first game this season until Oct. 19 against Belmont, then host its first home game in more than 20 years on a new grass field against Locke the following week.
“The assignment is rebuilding the legacy and tradition of Verbum Dei,” said Parks, a Baptist pastor who spent four years as head coach at Maya Angelou High until being called back to duty at The Verb.
Russell has made it clear that despite some Catholic schools using a strategy to fix sports programs quickly by turning to transfers and promises of financial breaks and other perks, he wants none of that.
“When you build for a community rather than just a school, loyalty and long-term success follow,” Russell said.
Parks wants to build with each freshman class.
“That’s what we did at Angelou,” he said. “We want you to come because Verbum Dei is a great educational institution. Football is a byproduct.”
All students participate in a corporate work study program that requires them once a week to get real work experience. Some have to show up wearing a suit and tie. They are balancing work, sports participation and school as 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds, something that prepares them for college and adulthood.
“It’s definitely going better,” said 250-pound Geovanny Gutierrez. “Last year there was no motivation to play.”
They’ve been using a synthetic turf field built by the Rams at nearby Nickerson Gardens while waiting for their new field to be finished next month. Otherwise, they work out in their weight room or asphalt next to the school parking lot.
“We’re going to make it work,” Parks said. “That’s why we don’t mind practicing on blacktop. We know what we could be.”
The program now has 26 players, including 12 freshmen. This is a program building step by step, focusing on academics during the day, study halls, then sports in the afternoon.
Adrian Alvarado was on the team last year but almost didn’t come out this year after last season’s abrupt halt.
“I felt disappointed,” he said. “I like the idea we’re starting slow. We’ve been able to recruit more students. I just want to get a game in already.”
It’s a refreshing and inspiring scene to see an administration and coaching staff on the same page by using sports to teach life lessons while not looking for shortcuts in order to win first.
Russell has never shied away from a challenge, and getting the football program back led him to say he might make a call to the Vatican with a message for Pope Leo XIV, who’s a sports fan.
“I’ll invite him to a game here,” he said.
Welcome to the new Verbum Dei, full of hope, full of dreams, full of respect for its families and community.
No. 1-ranked Mater Dei opened its high school football season on Saturday in Florida looking every bit as good as last season when the Monarchs went unbeaten despite lots of mistakes in the second half.
New quarterback Ryan Hopkins threw three touchdown passes in the second quarter en route to a 26-23 victory over Ft. Lauderdale Aquinas, which has won six straight Florida state titles. Chris Henry Jr. caught two of them, covering 22 and 82 yards. Gavin Honore had a 62-yard touchdown reception.
Mater Dei scored 26 consecutive points after falling behind 3-0 in the first quarter. They led 26-3 at halftime. But the Monarchs went scoreless in the second half.
The Monarchs were hardly perfect, leaving coach Raul Lara plenty to work on. They had two interceptions in the first half that ended with turnovers on fumbles during the returns. Twice the Monarchs botched point-after attempts. There were numerous 15-yard personal foul penalties for taunting, late hits, grabbing the face mask and a horse collar. They had 13 penalties for 140 yards through three quarters.
The defense did what it has been doing well for years — stopping the run. USC commit Tomuhini Topui had a sack and Shaun Scott, another USC commit, was adding pressure at the linebacker position. Danny Lang led the secondary with two pass breakups.
Aquinas had fourth and goal from the one-yard line to start the fourth quarter and failed on a fumble trying to run up the middle to cut a 26-10 deficit. But Hopkins was soon intercepted. Aquinas scored on a quarterback option play by Mason Mallory to close to within 26-16 with 9:44 left. Then it was 26-23 on a touchdown pass with 1:36 left until Mater Dei ran out the clock.
Hopkins finished with 272 yards passing. Henry had four catches for 134 yards.
The Monarchs next make their home debut on Friday in a game that will likely result in a running clock. They face Bishop Montgomery, which lost five transfers to ineligibility.
Mater Dei was one of three Trinity League teams opening in Florida. St. John Bosco won 31-0 on Friday night in a game halted at halftime because of lightning. There was also lightning for Mater Dei’s game that delayed the start by one hour. Orange Lutheran was playing Saturday night against Miami Northwestern.
Three other Trinity League teams — Santa Margarita, JSerra and Servite — all lost nonleague openers on Friday.
