Josh Rosen is no stranger to high expectations. UCLA’s star sophomore is both the center of them and the setter of them.

On the first day of training camp this summer, he boldly stated his goals for the year.

“I want to win a national championship,” Rosen said flatly.

With Rosen leading the way, No. 16 UCLA has big ambitions that start with playing in the Pac-12 Championship Game on Dec. 2 and end anywhere between the school’s first conference title in 18 years and a national championship trophy.

All teams dream during the summer. It’s when everyone is optimistic and undefeated, prone to overstatement and hyperbole. But the Bruins, who start their season Saturday at 12:30 p.m. against Texas A&M, didn’t just spend the offseason with their heads in the cloudless Southern California sky.

They got to work.

They installed a new offense, changed their defensive formation and put on more than 500 pounds combined. When UCLA runs into Kyle Field on Saturday, the team will look different than the squad that crawled to an 8-5 finish in 2015.

Despite the late-season slide, UCLA was voted the media’s favorite to win the Pac-12 South. Defending Pac-12 champion Stanford was picked to win the conference, which left the Bruins once again chasing the Cardinal. New offensive coordinator Kennedy Polamalu’s scheme was designed in part to prepare the Bruins for Stanford again and beat the Cardinal for the first time in head coach Jim Mora’s tenure.

The box is loaded now, jammed with a tight end (or two) and a fullback. The added personnel was Rosen’s biggest adjustment to the offense, but to him, everything remains the same, even though it looks different.

“It’s just window dressing,” the quarterback said. “No one, I don’t care how smart you are, how much of a genius you are at football, you’re not going to reinvent power, counter, inside zone, wide zone. You’re not going to reinvent football, you’re just going to change the way it looks a little bit.”

Superficial changes aside, the Bruins say this team also feels different from the inside. The entire group is tighter, thanks in large part to new mental conditioning coach Trevor Moawad. They’re holding each other more accountable as they chase their goals together.

“We play more for each other,” defensive lineman Eli Ankou said of the defense. “As a defensive lineman, my job is to be able to obviously make plays, but to be able to make plays for the linebackers and the DBs. If I don’t pressure the quarterback, the DBs can’t make their plays. If they don’t pressure their receivers, then I can’t make my plays. It’s more of a cross-over responsibility.”

The Bruins are coming off their worst finish under Mora after losing three of their last five games. For a moment, they had everything they wanted within reach and it all went away in a rivalry game gone awry.

The year ended in the Foster Farms Bowl with a loss in “a game that we weren’t particularly proud to be in in the first place,” Rosen said.

Now they’re turning the page.

“Clean slate, clean season,” Ankou said. “I’m just ready to play football against these guys.”