POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 28, SDSU 10
Pasadena, Calif. (Rose Bowl Stadium)
September 12, 2026

UCLA Bruins
Bob Chesney
The Angelo M. Mazzone III UCLA Head Football Coach
opening statement
“The defense had a really nice day overall and kept us in this game when we needed it the most. I thought there were some opportunities for guys to step up and make some plays. I was pretty impressed with some of them that did it. Wayne [Knight] again, obviously with what he did, and the guys on the offensive line. And then Semaj Morgan, I think that’s a kid that just deserves a ton of credit for today’s game. There were plays that we needed to make and he made them, in tight contested areas. That kid is tough. Along with his punt return, along with his run blocking, it was really good to see him have the day that he had. That is not the way want to play football. Especially in the first half. It wasn’t pretty but it was gritty. I was proud of our guys, and we found a way to win the game.”

on the strong play in the second half
“You can go back and look historically, especially last year at JMU, we were pretty dominant in the second half. It has to do with the adjustments that we make, but also our guys figuring out the speed at which things are happening. When you have 60-70 guys on the team, that ability to gel early in the season - it takes a second. You settle down when you get to half time and you have to understand what the test is at hand, then you have to trust one another and play together as a team. We have to start much, much faster, but I like the energy that we came back out with in the second half. We were able to get a stop, then put a drive together. The rest was history after that.”

on walking through the tunnel to enter the Rose Bowl
“It was cool to walk through here. I showed our team a little video on the Rose Bowl. We showed them a video about what it means to play here. I wanted them to have a full understanding of what it means to play here. Back from the historical perspective with [Maurice Jones-Drew] with the punt return against San Diego State. I think our guys all understood that. I think that our guys all understood that but it wasn't about that history. It was about making our own for their first game. [Wayne] plays football the right way and I love watching him be patient and then he waits for it and when he sees it he just gets up to full speed within two or three steps and, you know, again, that's nothing we haven't seen you know before. He means a lot to this team.”

on the quarterback play
“I'm sure Nico will be in here for you to talk to him a little about; it's not his best game, he knows it's not his best game and I just think again that the grit and the toughness that he played with though when he needed to get a couple first downs that really, really mattered to keep drives alive and put his body on the line and you know peeled himself off that ground and just kept fighting for his teammates, that's special. But there's a whole lot we got to do in there. You know, I got to go back and just watch the tape with our coaches and ask ‘Are we putting the guys in the best position? Yes or no?’ I thought you saw that with Samaj, what an unbelievable job by him just being able to again play the game that he just played. But we need to get some bodies back that's probably A and B. If we don't have those bodies back it's hard to go in with your top three of who you think might be playing and then none of them play, and it changes the game plan pretty quickly you know midway through and we just got to adjust and be a little bit better.”

on Wayne Knight’s performance
“Obviously he had three touchdowns it was the first time he ever did it in his career, I didn't know that, and he did it twice in a row so I think there's probably shown something even more than you know what people thought. I think we all knew what he was pretty capable of and I thought, again – you watch Wayne but let's just talk a little bit about the offensive line in there as well you know from [the offensive line] pulling around on that one run it was violent at the point of attack like he was and then the receiver's blocking on the outside. Wayne [Knight] doesn't just score by himself, you know, he needs a whole lot of help and I think that those guys played a physical tough game up front which allowed him to have the success that he had and I think he'd be the first to say that.”

on Jalen Woods’ performance
“I thought he played great. You're going to go back and watch some of the film and just some of the fits in some of the blitz game were not perfect [but] when you're out there, we believe in you and you got to be able to do your job and we did have a couple of moments where we fell flat. But [Jalen Woods] was phenomenal. Yes, I think he played as hard as he possibly can, but he'll have two or three plays too that he wishes he had back but that screen was everything at that moment that was that was a major factor in this game.”

on the message to the team at halftime
“Yeah. It's the same thing, the issue was there was no score at halftime right so, yeah – it's, you know, you play two halves for a reason - four quarters - and we got to get better each of them every step of the way. The message at halftime – ‘We know what they're doing now.’ We know their speed, we know what their power feels like, we understand it now. We got to be able to make these plays that we came up a little bit short on in the first half and I thought our guys did a pretty good job of that.”

on the offensive flow of the game
“I think the run game sets up the pass game, as we all know, and I think there were moments for us to take a couple shots downfield today off of the run fakes, and that's got to be part of it. You can't just run the ball, you got to be able to loosen it back up. We had a lot of RPOs that we threw early in the game and had success with and then we just kind of you know that that success didn't show up anymore. As far as distributing the ball, you know, where they're all getting a chance to touch this football –sometimes there's just a hot hand that shows up, and Wayne's [Knight] made the most of his opportunities so it would be kind of ridiculous to pull him out of that game at some point. But we're going to need everybody, and I think this is important to just keep in mind – you watch it in the receiver room, you watch it with the offensive line, you watch it in the tight end room. The running back is a position that you're getting a lot of hit by a lot of different sized bodies, right? If we only have one, we're going to be in trouble, right, because there's going to be moments where you know one can't go and today there was moments where two couldn't go and then they found their way back but they were they were they were a little bit nicked up and I thought they fought through it and found a way. But you need as many as you could possibly have because it's a long season, and they're playing against some pretty you know heavy hitters from the D-line, to the linebackers, to the safeties that wear and tear on them pretty good.”

Senior Wide Receiver Semaj Morgan
on playing well late on in each game
“Just being able to stick with it and keep the energy on the sideline plays a big part. The strength staff so we can be able to finish late in games, because you can’t win the game in the first half. Being able to play late is very important to our success."

on what Coach Chesney says to the team on film after a game like this
“He just says we can always get better. No matter what happened in the game, like, who cares if we won this game or not; we still have corrections we need to make. WE still have stuff we can be better at.”

on San Diego State’s running game
“I’ll just say it’s just in the details. Like on defense, they know what they like to do. Just being able to be correct in our fits and lining up right. Whatever we are doing, just playing fast and everyone is rallying to the ball.”

Senior Linebacker Jalen Woods
on playing well late on in each game
That’s just how we practice every single day. Every single rep, every single period of practice is always hard. When we get to the game, you know it's like we’ve done it before.”

on showing energy throughout the game
“It’s really easy to. That’s just how we practice. At practice we have a ton of energy. Everything is good on good. We always get each other better. We go through a practice in the offseason; when it’s time to get to the game, us being so connected makes it easy. That’s just how we practice every single day. That’s how we go about ourselves every single day.”

on his interception 
“I just know, watching film, they like to do screens when it's third and medium or long. There’s a lot of film to watch on them.”

5th Year Running Back Wayne Knight
on pulling together as a team in tight games
“I think it's the togetherness that we have in our culture, how connected we are with the offense. You know as a team in general, being able to be that close with guys that you're going to war with is important and it shows up in big moments like tonight.”

on his ability to score touchdowns
“I'll just say the positions I'm putting in. We're moving the ball to the offense, we're making plays out there and when the light shines on you, it's your time to make that play. I’m fortunate enough, all glory to God, I'm able to make those plays.”

Senior Quarterback Nico Iamaleava
on dealing with the defensive pressure and San Diego State’s defensive scheme
“Yeah, I'd say obviously, you know, we're still getting comfortable with each other as far as the offense and seeing what we do best. So I think it was, you know, the second game for us to learn from. Coming from game one and game two, you know, we were trying to make strides in and, you know, playing team football. And, you know, that happened. So I think that it was really good and letting us for us to go up a little bit.”

on the injuries to the receiving room
“Yeah, I think, I thought the guys that came in, came in for the receivers that were banged up. You know, they played well. And I thought we were, you know, standing on the same page. And, you know, he's already done great practices. So it's good to see him on a great game.”

San Diego State Aztecs
Sean Lewis
SDSU Head Coach
opening statement
“It wasn’t the outcome we were looking for. The boys played really, really hard. We need to do a better job of leading throughout the week. I wasn't really pleased with the way we practiced. That starts with me: making sure I got the guys motivated to go, inspired and prepared to win, and to play hard throughout the week. Again, we've got what we're doing there as we learned this team. I don't think a big piece that most young teams or inexperienced teams need to learn is how to win, and how to win throughout the course of the week. That starts with practice: the urgency to get to practice with the right mindset, to get better, to grow. It starts with my leadership as we do it and move forward. But the boys competed hard tonight, man, kind of aside to see them respond; you show up with a little urgency to get better and to practice to prepare. The same enthusiasm, the same passion to play to win tonight. Coach Chesney and his staff and his talented roster did a nice job.”

on how his team played in the first half vs. the second half
“Inefficiency on offense. We went three-and-out a lot there, so we were behind and were taking three-and-outs constantly; we were behind in the field position game. I think it was a culmination of snaps and an inefficiency on offense. That starts with the play calling, and with myself again throughout the week, so we can have more success and flip the field. IT felt like we were behind in field position all night, which led to short fields for them, and obviously the turnovers and the explosive plays. It was a culmination of all things, with a lot of body blows, and the defense was doing a good job in the first half. IT became a little too much in the back half.”

on trying to throw the ball deep
“A lot of it was part of the plan. I felt like we had good matchups on the edges. There was a lot of single high coverage. So again, those are good calculated shots downrange that we got balls on hands that we didn’t catch. We had other guys wide open that we missed. Pitch and catch. We have to do a better job with that as we go. We will evaluate what's best to get a quarterback in rhythm, what routes we run and create more separation as we look forward.”

on the offense struggling while the defense played well
“That’s what we talked about in terms of intensity, right. Good teams are able to play downs and use special teams as a weapon to flip the field. You’ve got two out of the three phases doing well. You have to evaluate and assess what is going on with the other things. Again, a talented team you have to go up against. They put some stressors and issues with what they did offensively as well. We have to get back in rhythm throwing the ball. I thought we ran the ball with efficiency, but again we have to evaluate as we go.”

SDSU cornerback Mike Lindsay
on the first half success 
“I think the second half is somewhere where we need to apply more focus like the first half. Just to be able to compete defensively and come out with the same energy in the second half.”

on what he saw during his interception before halftime 
“I saw the tight end leak out late, so in my head I’m thinking that the offense was trying to get everyone on one side of the field. Once I got the ball, my offensive skills kicked in and I started sprinting and all I saw was green grass. Obviously I put the offense in a bad position, but I thought I could have gone more.”

on how comfortable he is coming into this new defense 
“We run a very similar defense to my last school, so I feel extremely comfortable in this role. We have the pieces on this defense to win games and I’m not really worried. I think as a secondary we all need to play together collectively, and to know that we have each other and we can fly around the field.”

on the difference between successful drives and unsuccessful ones
“I think we did a good job. with our aggression and that really caught them by surprise. I think they thought we were going to be a little bit weaker than we are and how we came out there. We did a good job at just stopping the run, containing the quarterback and just keeping him in the pocket.”

on the gameplan to keep Nico Iamaleava in the pocket
“Definitely, we knew coming out of the huddle to watch for that and to be ready for his quick release and to know the ball is coming out fast. We just had to play tighter on the routes and squeeze them a little more. We didn’t want to get him in rhythm, so we just played up more and tried to make him throw deeper.”

SDSU offensive lineman Michael Leville Watkins 
on the first half success 
“We had a lot of energy in the first half and stuck to our gameplan. Things went the right way, but we knew we still had to fight in the second half by trying to stay consistent. I think we just let some things go and we’re just unprepared for it. We had a lot left in the tank. I wish we could have shown that in the third and fourth quarter.”

on what the offensive emphasis became later in the game
“We just really wanted to stick to our identity and try to keep moving the ball. We wanted to keep being physical with their front seven. Obviously things didn’t go according to plan, but I felt just sticking to our game plan was important. We’re very into ourselves and we know what we can do.”

on the conversation on the sideline during the offensive struggles
“There were a lot of conversations about it, but yet again we tried sticking to the game plan. We wanted to keep trying to get our guys in the right spot and go forward. There were a lot of in the moment things and little let up’s here and there. Every guy just needs to go in there and just follow their technique and be more specific about what we do.”