There was a role reversal in Evanston. When Northwestern had UCLA on the ropes, the Bruins flipped the script and had a chance to tie or beat the Wildcats.

On the final drive, a sack and timely tackling ran the clock out. NU won its first Big Ten game of the season 17-14 over UCLA. 

Here’s what we learned from Northwestern’s afternoon home win over UCLA on Saturday.

The offense goes behind a two-headed rushing attack

The Northwestern offense took a blow when Cam Porter was ruled out for the season after the win over Western Illinois. That left the door open for either Caleb Komolafe or Joseph Himon II.

Neither one is the featured back. Both have combined to be the leading part of this Northwestern offense, and the offense follows suit.

Two weeks ago, the duo looked solid against Oregon. The offense just struggled to finish drives against the Ducks’ defense, although Oregon is a top-10 team for a reason. Against UCLA, the duo showed how they complement each other.

Komolafe ran between the tackles and wore down the interior of the UCLA defense. Himon took the edges on his runs and shed some would-be tacklers, too. Both combined for 100 rushing yards at halftime.

The passing game wasn’t game-changing, but it was efficient. What helped was how successful the running backs were in pass protection. Komolafe had a great blitz pickup that led to a Preston Stone 10-yard rush on second and eight.

The running backs are crucial to Northwestern’s success this year and they’ll have a good matchup next week against Louisiana-Monroe, which struggled on run defense against Power 4 teams.

Decision-making needs a killer edge

The biggest moment of the game came in the fourth quarter.

Northwestern’s offense just drove the ball down to the UCLA 3-yard line. The Himon-Komolafe combo was working, and Stone was taking care of the football.

In a Big Ten that’s supercharged with talent, Northwestern needs to beat teams when they’re on the ropes. The Bruins were on the ropes with fourth and goal at the 3. NU head coach David Braun opted for a field goal.

Playing it safe still put Northwestern up by 14 with seven minutes to go. A killer instinct needed to emerge in the fourth quarter, especially after the offense engineered a drive to the UCLA 3-yard line.

UCLA blocked the Luke Akers field goal to keep the score at 17-6. The ball went into the end zone, which resulted in a touchback, giving the Bruins possession at their own 20-yard line.

That ensuing UCLA drive included a hands-to-the-face foul on the NU defense that gave the Bruins 15 free yards, which led to a phenomenal touchdown toss from Iamaleava to Kwazi Gilmer. UCLA had new life.

The Bruins had a chance to tie or take the lead, but the defense held to force a punt. But a touchdown would have iced the game with six minutes to go, as Northwestern would have had a three-score lead in its pocket. Even if NU didn’t get score, that would have forced UCLA to go the length of the field to score.

Instead, Northwestern played it safe. It nearly burned them in the end.

This was a win Northwestern needed

UCLA came into Evanston as a broken team. The Bruins fired their head coach after losing two games to Mountain West teams, which UCLA expected to win with top-rated transfer quarterback Nico Iamaleava.

Simply put, Northwestern needed a win on Saturday. Not just to get back to .500 overall, but to make sure they get out of the bottom of the Big Ten standings.

This team wanted to prove it was better and improved than the 4-8 team last season. The Wildcats couldn’t afford to give UCLA its first win of the season, especially if the team wanted to live up to its billing as an experienced roster that knows how to win football games.

UCLA might have come into Saturday 0-3, but the Bruins still have the players to compete when given the chance. With an interim head coach and nothing left to lose, the ‘Cats needed to close the door on UCLA.

When they didn’t, UCLA staged a comeback. The ‘Cats defense did its job.

 Getting Northwestern back to .500 sets up a stretch where the ‘Cats have Louisiana-Monroe on deck with Purdue looming in three weeks after a trip to Penn State.