PISCATAWAY – Rutgers football coach Greg Schiano issued the warning earlier in the week.

His message?

Don’t be fooled by UCLA’s record, at the time, of 1-5. The Bruins, he said, were better than that record would indicate. A gauntlet of a schedule that included games against Indiana, LSU, Oregon and Penn State, all ranked teams, played a big role in the Bruins’ tough start to the season.

The Scarlet Knights on Saturday saw that up close, though a poor defensive performance only made it worse.

Rutgers couldn't stop UCLA in an eventual 35-32 loss on at SHI Stadium for the Scarlet Knights' third consecutive loss, which dropped them to 4-3 after they won their first four games.

A late touchdown from Rutgers made it a three-point game, but that's as close as it could get.

"It's not the desired outcome in what we set out to do," coach Greg Schiano said. "It's my job as the head coach to make sure that I examine everything in the program and make sure we are doing things correctly. I will not come up here and start to feel like the sky is falling down, I promise you. We did a lot of good things out there today. Just didn't play well enough to win."

Here are some instant takeaways:

Rough showing from Rutgers’ defense

First off, injuries didn’t help – the Scarlet Knights were already without linebacker Mohamed Toure, and on Saturday both starting defensive ends Aaron Lewis and Wesley Bailey were both ruled out.

Those are integral pieces of Joe Harasymiak’s unit.

Still, the Scarlet Knights’ defense needed to be better against UCLA, which came to Piscataway lugging an offense that ranked 130^th in the nation in total offense entering the day.

Rutgers’ defense got off to a bad start, yielding a touchdown on UCLA’s opening drive and with the exception of a brief stretch early in the third quarter, it never got much better.

At all.

"We did have injuries, but everybody's got injuries," Schiano said. "I think more than the guys that didn't play, were the guys that played that are hurting. Guys that played that didn't practice very much because they couldn't. They couldn't practice and then be able to play. They had to heal."

UCLA’s offense, run by former Kansas City Chiefs and Washington Commanders offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, finished with 478 total yards of offense.

Quarterback Ethan Garbers finished 32-of-38 passing for 383 yards and four touchdowns. He completely exposed the soft parts of Rutgers’ zone coverage.

"I just didn’t think we played our brand of football," linebacker Tyreem Powell said. "The brand we know, playing violent, executing and trusting each other on that side of the ball. There were a lot of things that went wrong with the defensive side of the ball. I just didn’t think we were us."

The Bruins have faced really good defenses this season, so that certainly plays a big role in their lackluster production before this game.

But Minnesota’s defense, run by former Rutgers linebackers coach Corey Hetherman, limited UCLA to 17 points on Oct. 12.

Schiano cited one particular stat that bothered him.

"(UCLA had) 223 yards after the catch," Schiano said. "That's the stat that just smacks me in the face, right. We didn't tackle well. Now, why is that? Did we forget how to tackle? You know, Michigan and Rutgers were back-and-forth last year as the best tackling team in football (according to) the stats that they do in tackling. We didn't forget how. We didn't forget how to coach it. We didn't forget how to do it. It's mostly the same guys."

Offense shows improvement

After two poor performances the previous two weeks, Rutgers’ offense showed life on Saturday.

The Scarlet Knights finished with 422 total yards of offense.

Quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis finished 18-of-30 for 287 yards with one interception, which came on first-and-10 at the UCLA 49 about midway through the fourth quarter.

"Just making the routine plays," Kaliakmanis said. "It was something I worked hard on this week with the guys. Fundamentally, just doing our details, executing our job and then just chopping it."

Running back Kyle Monangai finished with 106 yards on 19 carries with three touchdowns.

The offense made some big plays. On Rutgers' first drive, Kaliakmanis hit Ian Strong for a 42-yard pass (Strong made a great one-handed catch) to get to the UCLA 36. The drive ended with Kaliakmanis punching it in from one yard out for a touchdown.

Then in the fourth quarter, Kaliakmanis hit freshman receiver KJ Duff down the left sideline for a 59-yard pass to get down to the UCLA 5.

Monangai ran it in from there.

The offense wasn't all perfect − twice Rutgers went for two but failed to convert − but it played well enough to win.

"I think a sense of calmness in the offense," Kaliakmanis said. "Just us making the routine. We weren’t making the routine plays and that had a lot to do with me. I had a real talk with myself, and just being honest with myself and work on the things I knew I could get better at."

Injuries keep mounting for Rutgers football

They started before the season even started.

Toure was ruled out for the season with a torn ACL. Then once the season started, the injuries kept going.

Left guard Bryan Felter is out for the rest of the season, then running back Sam Brown suffered a season-ending lower-body injury.

Then this week tight ends Kenny Fletcher and Victor Konopka became the latest to suffer season-ending injuries.

Without both, Rutgers will need Mike Higgins and Logan Blake, both of whom are relatively inexperienced, to step up.

There’s nothing the Scarlet Knights can do about injuries, but they’re piling up as they get into the second half of the season.

"We were very fortunate a year ago with injuries," Schiano said. "We're not so fortunate this year. Nobody cares. That's life in the big city. Figure it out. And that's what we'll go do. We'll go figure it out."

What now?

This season certainly hasn’t gone the way most expected.

Rutgers’ next game is Friday at USC before a bye week, which will be a good time to regroup and try to get some players healthy.

The Scarlet Knights then host Minnesota before playing at Maryland, home against Illinois and at Michigan State to close out the regular season.

Are there potential wins there? Sure. Especially against the Terrapins and Spartans.

But nothing is a sure thing.

This loss to UCLA proved that.

Rutgers can still get two more wins to earn bowl eligibility, but that won’t happen unless the defense gets considerably better.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Rutgers football: Takeaways from loss to UCLA