No 2017 bowl eligible team has had the amount of distractions come their way before their bowl game as UCLA had. Their head coach was fired, assistant coaches were let go in the middle of preparation for their bowl game, severe wild fires impacted both practice schedules and the lives of the players and coaches, and lastly the team’s star player went through concussion protocol and eventually was unable to play in his last game as a Bruin (not official).
With all that being said, UCLA came out strong in the first half but could not finish the game as the UCLA defense reared its ugly but familiar head in the second half and the Bruins lost 35-17 to Kansas State Wildcats in the Cactus Bowl.