‘This win was definitely for him. We just love playing for that guy,’ Bruins QB Ethan Garbers says after a 35-32 victory for their first Big Ten triumph
— Ethan Garbers ran to the northwest corner of SHI Stadium, where a small but jubilant contingent of UCLA fans were celebrating the Bruins’ first Big Ten football victory 35-32 on Saturday over Rutgers.
Garbers scanned the section for his parents and couldn’t find them, but he knew there would be time to connect with his family later. He returned to his teammates, who had one man on their mind above all.
“I was just sharing it with my teammates and with Coach Foster because, I mean, this win was definitely for him,” Garbers said of first-year coach DeShaun Foster. “We just love playing for that guy. And it’s just finally good to see that all our hard work come to (fruition), and yeah, it’s just great.”
Foster’s inaugural season as head coach of his alma mater has been a trying one. Chip Kelly departed for the offensive coordinator position at Ohio State months before the Bruins made the jump into the stacked Big Ten Conference. Foster, though a UCLA Athletics Hall of Famer with years of experience on the staff, had no prior head-coaching experience.
The Bruins were picked to finish 15th out of 18 in the conference in the preseason media poll and struggled out of the gate, needing a fourth-quarter rally to beat Hawai’i before losing five games in a row.
