POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 45, California 24
Berkeley, Calif. (California Memorial Stadium)
September 5, 2026
UCLA’s Bob Chesney
The Angelo M. Mazzone III UCLA Head Football Coach
on how much fun that game was for him
“A lot of fun – it was a lot of fun. I think that was a battle. You’re looking at that right before halftime, and there was a shot to open this up a little bit an then we threw an interception, and they go right down and you’re like, ‘All right, now what?’ We get the ball back, so let’s go do something exciting with it. And that doesn’t work out. It’s a dog fight. And this running back [Adam Mohammed] ran as hard as I think any that we’ve seen. He’s going to be a problem in this league. He’s really good. So hats off to the style of play. We needed to get pressure and we needed to put him in a position where he was a little uncomfortable. He gave us a couple, and fortunately enough, Ta’Shawn [James] was on the receiving end of two of them. Those were big plays right there to ice it.”
on the status of quarterback Nico Iamaleava
“Yeah, he’s good. He just got his calf kind of got cleated, at the end there. He tried and it just kept cramping up, because of how he got cleated. We’ve got to do some work on that and get him cleaned up.”
on the play-calling by Bruins’ offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy
“I thought he did a good job. There was a little more in the run game, as you saw there at the end, that we were able to expose. We came back out at halftime, after turning it over, and thinking that, ‘Let’s go get a big one there right away.’ We had a little trick play called. It didn’t work out like it should have. We got into some penalties that you do not want to see ever, and they ended up stalling out drives. It put us into a situation where, we felt like there were moments that we could run by them. I think we could. It wasn’t a blocking issue, but it was more of a protection … but I thought that our run game, when it was on it was on, you just can’t run the ball all day long.”
on building this team’s depth and his impression of that
“I think that you’ve watched it for a while. You guys have been a part of seeing all of these recruits come in. We started school on January 3, and we had 17 kids show up that same day as the portal opened. A lot of guys stuck with us and did the right thing. We said to these guys, to every single one of them, ‘The only reason you’ll come here is if you intend to win a championship.’ And then the only other reason that you will come here is if you put the team first, your teammates second, and yourself third – team, teammates, self. That is the only way that you could do this. Those are all things that everyone agreed on, that everybody believed in. That is what you saw here today. They battled and they fought hard for each other. We have a ton of work to do, to clean up, and we’re just not there yet. But that was a good battle.”
on his team being able to pull out a victory and the team’s resolve
“Yeah, that’s it. That’s the word, it’s the resolve of this team. You felt it shift a little bit on the sideline at one point. It got into a tight game. It’s not like we were in a tough spot. We just needed to make sure that we maximized our next opportunity. These guys never wavered. You saw these guys on the sideline – these guys smiled, they were in a game that they loved to play with people they love to play it with.”
on a game with a lot of explosive plays
“I think that there were a couple of looks that our guys really liked … they did the right thing and played hard. And to get those X plays, you have to run the ball and stop the run and win the turnover battle and the X play battle. I thought that we did a nice job with the X play battle. We obviously won the turnover battle.”
on incorporating a big number of new players and if all feels surprising
“What is surprising about it is that it doesn’t feel like this is the first game. And I told these guys that just now – for 37 you made your debut here, and it doesn’t feel like that, it feels like we have been applying football here for a long time. To watch the joy on their faces at the end of it, and the belief that they have in it – I told these guys a long time ago, you have to believe it before you see it. And they did just that. And just hats off to our fans, to make the trip and travel and I’m sure a bunch of them live up here. But a bunch of others traveled. Now that was pretty special to have the band out there, singing the fight song, and being present with them. It’s a good start. We have a ton of work to do but it is a good start.”