POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 52, Purdue 38
Pasadena, Calif. (Rose Bowl Stadium)
September 19, 2026
UCLA Bruins
Bob Chesney
The Angelo M. Mazzone III UCLA Head Football Coach
opening statement
“Obviously, a battle, not easy, which it’s not expected to be easy in this league. I think that's a really good football team that we just played. I think that that quarterback is elite. I think we were able to keep the running back in check for the most part. But the quarterback and his timing with the receivers, the routes they ran, the precision, and the places he put it, we just couldn't really get much pressure. And then when we tried to overload pressure with it, they just had the ability to execute in the face of some major pressure. I thought he did a really nice job. And then just offensively, what we did today, I thought, was phenomenal. Wayne [Knight] continues to show up like he does, so does all the running backs, the running game, the tight ends. You know, to watch that offense align and the tight ends do what they do is phenomenal, but let's talk about Nico [Iamaleava] a little bit here today, too, because last week, I told you it wasn't his greatest game, and we talked about it because of that, something good will happen. And you watch him go out here today, and I think he was near perfect for a stretch at the beginning of that game. Finding all kinds of different receivers and being able to carry the ball himself a little bit, but, man, he’s just a warrior because he was pretty nicked up out there at moments, and he just won't come out of that game. He just wanted to keep fighting and keep playing, and I'm sure he's gonna feel it a little bit tomorrow morning.”
on the keys to Nico Iamaleava’s success
“Yeah, I think some of it came off a play action game, but what have we done really well up to this point in time? It’s been running the football, so you got to use that to set up the pass now. And I think we provided him with a pretty clean pocket. He got through his reads, he didn't hang on anybody, wait for them to get open, he just moved along, and got to the open receiver and was able to deliver accurately in front of them, and I thought he did a phenomenal job with that. So, between that and then just trusting what he saw, trusting what he was able to execute all week, and then they come out here, we got a lot of the same exact looks, we thought we would get, and I thought he could just deliver the ball, and did it with a lot of poise, precision, and accuracy, which was great.”
on Nico Iamaleava’s health
“Yeah, sure can. On Nico, he'll be fine. I mean, it's just that's gonna happen that way when you have quarterbacks that are willing to put their body on the line like that. You're not gonna wake up the next day feeling great, right? Which is just part of it, but it'll get through it, and he'll do what he needs to do, how he needs to do it.”
on UCLA’s offensive line depth
“As far as the O-line, yeah, I just think it continues to be impressive, and then we're putting a lot of guys through there, rotating a lot of guys. I know it's a question you guys continue to have, but that's what we want to do. And I think that, to be able to do that, it keeps you fresh. In the end, we knew we were running the ball, they knew we were running the ball, and we were still able to run the ball. And I think that's what that all has to do with, is to get us to the fourth quarter and still be able to do what we need to do.”
on Sammy Omosigho’s performance
“Yeah, no doubt about it. And I think that's his third game in a row forcing a fumble. There are things he's gonna want to clean up in there, too, and other, you know, schematic things that he could do better, which he will. But at the same point in time, you know, the one play that's stood out to me, the ball is bouncing, is the running back, I think, number four, and it looked like he was gonna go and get the edge, and Sammy [Omosigho] just put out one arm and just crumbled this kid with one arm. That, to me, was the strength he has, you know, the poise he plays with, the toughness he plays with, and the strength, to be able to execute and finish on those tackles. You know, are things that are pretty impressive. You just gotta keep sharpening his edges and keep getting it to be the player that he knows he could be, but it's a good start to the season.”
on Nico Iamaleava’s toughness
“I think that's pretty self-explanatory, pick himself off the mat and get back in there. He wanted to be in there and just continue to battle with his teammates and continue to put himself on the line. It’s pretty awesome to see.”
on UCLA’s passing defense
“You know, as far as the coverage is concerned, I think the quarterback and the receivers were really good. I think that the time that they spent on some of their things, and then just our sort of breakdown, I felt like the pressure mounted a little bit and we were not as clean in our technique as we needed to be. We have guys that are fast. We got guys that are skilled. We got guys that could run and bang with almost anybody. We can't put ourselves in some sort of panic mode, which might have hit us a little bit. you know, throughout today. But when we needed it the most, we were able to get a stop. I think it was the 9:19. We were up by one score in the four quarter, and we got a stop in there. That was a big deal. And then just frustrating things, even when we do get to stop, now it's a late hit on the quarterback. Now it's a pass interference. Now it's - whatever it might be. And then the fake punt shows up in there, which I thought they did a great job. We were in ‘safe’. Should’ve never happened, but it did. So there's a lot of things in there that we had stops, and then all of a sudden it didn’t because of penalties, and good teams don't do that, so we got to get back and clean that up.”
on the Sammy Omosigho’s takeaways
“We had Peanut Tillman come by and talk a little bit about the peanut punch back in camp, or spring. And I think there's a lot of that same thing, so he finds that ball, you know, he seeks that ball, and then he's got a pretty powerful punch, so I think that's all part of the timing and the location and the accuracy of that punch. That puts you in position, and he does a good job of doing that without sacrificing a tackle. A lot of people sacrifice a tackle in that moment. And if they don't hit the ball, there's a big run that happens. He can do both, and it's exciting to watch.”
on Nico Iamaleava’s role in the running game
“Yeah, I think that's what you'll see from him. Will there be some lulls that happen? I think every quarterback - you can't just play the most perfect game every single week and he was near perfect as he went through today. But because of the run game, it allows us to set up some other things in the pass game and play action boot type of situations that present themselves or important. But then he can pull the ball down and run himself quite a bit, and I think those are all things that you want in your elements. You don't want to be just a pocket quarterback that can't move, you want to be elusive in there, you want to be able to run, so you can play 11-on-11. And then, at the same point in time, when you have to throw, you want to be accurate and on time with it, and I thought he did exactly that throughout today.”
on playing complementary football
“Yeah, play complimentary football is what I want to see. I want to see the offense and defense click at elite levels is what would be ideal. We said it on the sideline - the guys on defense were like ‘Thanks for getting our back, and it's what we’ve talked about before. The defense is gonna need them at some point, and then we're all gonna need the special teams at some point. And I thought, we haven't played a perfect game yet. We haven't played the perfect complementary game yet, but there's one in there. We just gotta make sure we time it up and I'm looking forward to seeing that day, because it exists. There are fibers in here of a really high-level football team. We just need to make sure that we that we execute and we get a little more consistent with it throughout the whole course of the game.”
UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava
on the fast start and the ability to pass for more yards tonight
“I thought in week one, I thought we performed well. Maybe not to our max potential, but we had a great week of preparation and that was the main thing, going into week three. It was our preparation during the week. I thought that in week two, we took it lightly. We did not prepare well. You guys saw the results. I think that in week three, that was the emphasis, our preparation.”
on the progression this team has made since last year and to see UCLA at 3-0
“Shoot, it means everything. I think that just speaks to the growth of the team and speaks to Coach Ches, of how he got us to buy into this process and his winning, his winning ways. It feels good to be 3-0, and we’ve got to keep going."
UCLA linebacker Sammy Omosigho
on the challenge of this game, coming off the first two weeks
“This was a game that was gritty, first game in the Big Ten and the other team is very talented. Both teams being talented, you’ve got prepare. You’ve got to win the game during the entire week. Going forward, it starts tomorrow for the next Saturday.”
on forcing fumbles in the win over Purdue
“Yeah, our coach on Tuesday, he put up a clip of Fred Warner. This was a big emphasis for us, all week. Just punching the ball out, creating another turnover and create another opportunity. That’s my goal every week, every day.”
on two penalties assessed for roughing the passer
“The first one, I felt like I’d been pushed to the quarterback, so I think that is out of my control. And the second one, I’ve just got to play smarter. We’re not going to pull any punches. It’s just about being smarter with the whistles and everything, but we’re going to be flying around every time.”
on big takeaway plays in the air and what the defense needs to clean up
“We’ve just got to clean it up with our pass rush lanes, with quarterback contain. We’ve got to clean it up 100 percent, and we’ll work on it this week and try to be better next week.”
UCLA running back Wayne Knight
on how the offense has been developing and the role of the offensive line
“The biggest thing for us was to just put it all together. And I think that we stepped up to that challenge – what we did on the ground, in the air. But the guys up front, no matter who is in there as guys are rotating all the time, who ever is in there is going to put up front. They are working as a team.”
on his moniker as ‘The Dark Knight’
“That’s pretty cool. You’ve got a unique name and people feed off that. It’s not something new. It’s becoming big here at UCLA though.”
on his increased production this season
“We’re sticking to the code. It’s a good rotation in our running back room. I’m put in a good position. We’re moving the ball on offense and we are getting down in the red zone. I’m able to punch it in. It’s about whatever is best for the team.”
on Bruins’ quarterback Nico Iamaleava
“He’s just a straight dog, there really isn’t much to say about that. He’s battling. He gets hurt and he gets back up. He plays the next play. He’s doing this for his brothers.”
Purdue Boilermakers
Barry Odom
Purdue Head Coach
opening statement
“Very disappointed in our run defense. No way in the world, you can give up what we did, play like we did, and have a chance to win. When you combine that with -3 turnovers on the other side. So we had a lot of things to fix. And, you know, it's unfortunate because I think there were some really good performances out there on the offensive side. We didn't give ourselves a chance. Just couldn't get them stops. I thought there were times that we didn't have our fits right, and then times that we did, we didn't tackle very well. Didn't win on the line of scrimmage, and if we can't, if we can't get that fixed, it's going to be hard to play good defensive football. We have a lot of decisions to make and a lot of areas to get fixed in short order. So, pretty frustrated with that.”
on giving up explosive plays
“Yeah, we haven't we haven't come up with the right call at the right time and when we have, we haven't been able to make a play. So, I think that that's certainly alarming any way you slice it or dice it. We don't get that fixed then we have no chance defensively to be able to play winning football. I'm not I'm not waving the white flag and it's over, we got to get it fixed. If we don't, then I'll sit here next week and say the same thing, and then the next week say the same thing. We got a lot to get done.”
on the defensive talent
“We certainly do. That's my frustration: we do. I believe in in that. We’ve got to make sure we do everything we can to get them in a position to play free, play fast, and play confident. Again, we've got a lot of work to do.”
on playing aggressive
“I think the calls have been pretty similar each week. I don't know that anytime tonight that we were able to get a negative play or a gain of zero, certainly that helped the drive, we just didn't get any of them. We got to figure out, maybe really look at what, what can we do. Are we doing too much and then kind of remove it from there.”
on his receivers
“They're making plays. Ryan did a great job delivering the ball, made some big-time catches and we had some run after catch. You know, it was good to see. We can't just go outscore people, you know, it's not going to work. I think we've got an opportunity with those guys that we'll continue to protect the quarterback, like we did and have. Ryan's making really good reads and he's moving than the ball.”
on closing the game to 28-24
“At halftime and once we started fighting back there, I thought it's going to be a heck of a game. I thought that the momentum had kind of switched to our sideline and then we couldn't keep it on that side. After that next drive, they had offensively. I thought our guys responded. There was some good things there. We just didn't play nearly good enough on one side to have a chance of that.”
Junior quarterback Ryan Browne
on his first interception
“Yeah, I think, you know, obviously, we're seriously doing a great job getting open. Pretty much the whole game, and Coach Odom called a really good game and put me in good positions. But I also think there were a lot of missed opportunities out there as well.”
on the first touchdown compared to a similar situation last year
“Yeah. Well, we were prepared for them to, you know, give that look. Xavier scored 2 touchdowns against that look tonight. It feels good to prepare for something and then be able to put it out on the field.”
Senior defensive back Don Saunders
on defense struggles stopping runs
“I mean, it just comes down the fundamentals of football: the center edges, running your field, contact, wrapping up. We just going to go back to the drawing board and fix it. We know what we have to fix and it’s on us to do it nobody is going to do it for us and we'll get it done.”
on defenses lack of execution
“Like I said, I think it just comes down to the fundamentals of football: tackling, center edges, playing with that tenacity. We got the guys to do it. Coaches are putting us into position we just gotta execute.”