Penn State loses to unranked UCLA on Saturday, October 4, 2025, with a final score of 42-37, marking their second loss in a row.

This game was an expected formality for the Nittany Lions after the loss to Oregon the previous week. Their opponents, UCLA, had been on a roller coaster of a season with no wins to their belt and a completely uprooted coaching staff. The hope for UCLA was to put up a semi-convincing fight against the ranked #7, but it was much more than that. After outscoring Penn State by 20 points in the 2nd half, the momentum was with the Bruins. Despite the significant score deficit, Penn State began gaining traction on the offense, but it was simply not enough, and a new underdog fairytale was written. And the significance of this win wasn’t overlooked either. UCLA’s interim coach Tim Skipper describes the atmosphere after the win, “You’d think it was Mardi Gras”. “There was water flying everywhere, there’s music, there’s guys that can’t dance that are dancing, there’s coaches trying to be dancers. It was exciting.” This second loss by Penn State was and is an absolute mockery of the program with the Big 10 team falling out of top 25 rankings after their loss to an unranked and 0-4 team. If alarm bells for the team were not already ringing, they certainly are now. This comes as an incredibly bitter result for Penn State, when they were ranked #2 in the preseason and into the regular season, and are now unranked. This season had been projected to be extremely promising for Penn State, and now, with the back-to-back losses, the potential for any successful postseason play has seemingly vanished from the table. Penn State plays Northwestern, another unranked team, next Saturday.