UCLA Opens at Home Against a Remade San Diego State Team

UCLA plays its first home game of the Bob Chesney era on Saturday, hosting San Diego State at the Rose Bowl.

Both teams arrive 1-0, and both arrive changed. The Bruins are in their first year under head coach Bob Chesney and their third in the Big Ten. The Aztecs are on the road for the first time as members of a rebuilt Pac-12, the conference UCLA left behind in 2024. Kickoff is set for 4:15 p.m.

UCLA opened the Chesney era last Saturday with a 45-24 win at California in Berkeley, where Wayne Knight ran for two fourth-quarter touchdowns and Anthony Woods sealed the result with a 53-yard scoring run. The Bruins, who finished 3-9 in 2025 and fired coach DeShaun Foster three games into that season, return quarterback Nico Iamaleava.

“It was a lot of fun,” Chesney said afterward, according to the Associated Press. “That was a battle.”

San Diego State comes in off a 53-20 win over Portland State on Sept. 5. According to a San Diego State athletics release, the 53 points set a Snapdragon Stadium record, running back Lucky Sutton scored three rushing touchdowns, and 82 players saw the field. Quarterback Jayden Denegal threw for 137 yards and two scores.

“How about them Aztecs? 1-0. That’s good,” coach Sean Lewis said after that game, according to reporting by Sports Illustrated. “I’m pleased with the effort, but there’s a ton that we’ve got to clean up.”

By early this week, Lewis had turned the page to Pasadena.

“It is time to put the Portland State game to bed,” he said, according to Sports Illustrated. “Glad that we were able to get the right outcome. Not pleased with our process and how we went about it.”

The programs know each other well. The San Diego State release lists Saturday as the 25th meeting between the schools, with UCLA holding a 22-1-1 edge in a series that dates to a 25-6 Bruins win on Oct. 7, 1922. The Aztecs’ lone victory came in 2019, a 23-14 result on their last visit to the Rose Bowl. UCLA won the most recent meeting, 35-10, at Snapdragon Stadium on Sept. 9, 2023.

Both rosters have turned over heavily. San Diego State, which joined the new Pac-12 on July 1, returns just one defensive starter from a year ago and played 14 true freshmen in the opener, according to the release. UCLA used 37 new players in its win at Cal.

The game will be televised nationally on Big Ten Network, with radio coverage on San Diego Sports 760, San Diego State’s flagship station, according to the Aztecs’ release.

Here is what to know before Saturday. UCLA and San Diego State kick off at 4:15 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026, at Rose Bowl Stadium, 1001 Rose Bowl Drive. Single-game tickets are sold through UCLA Athletics, with prices varying by seat. General on-site parking on the Brookside Golf Course lots costs $38 in advance and $44 on game day for standard vehicles, according to UCLA and Rose Bowl parking information, and a free shuttle carries fans to the stadium from the Parsons Engineering Complex in Old Pasadena. The stadium is cashless, and it posts its clear-bag policy and permitted items at rosebowlstadium.com. For more, call UCLA Sales and Service at (310) 206-5991 or visit uclabruins.com.