UCLA Head Coach Jim Mora
opening statement
“It was a good win, a tough win. We had a lot of new guys playing on defense and doing a nice job. We’re 5-0 at home; now our objective is to go on the road and get a win. I’m really proud of those young men. They’re resilient, they have great character. Tonight they displayed tremendous energy and passion. They were pulling for each other, and it’s always fun to coach a group like that. I’m really proud of them and excited to get a win and get back to .500, and we’ve got a couple left, and we’re going to focus on the one in front of us.”
on Josh Rosen's toughness
“I’m obviously proud of him coming back off the injury and taking the shot to the face and leading the team to victory. But I'm proud of all those guys. They're all like Josh. There’s just a full team of guys who are gritty and tough and playing through pain and through adversity and stepping up when they have to. It has not been an easy season for us; we’ve been really good at home and struggled mightily on the road. We get one more chance on the road to try to come up with a great performance.”
on tightening up the run defense in the second half
“They ran it 38 or 39 times in the first half, so their average per carry wasn't outlandish. It wasn't great. We got the lead, and they had to throw a little bit more. But teams are committing to running the ball on us, so they're going to get some yards, but when we can get a lead and make them throw it, we can get some sacks and get some plays made on the ball, and that’s what happened tonight.”
on the play of Mossi Johnson
“I’m really proud of Mossi. He has had a gritty career here. I remember him as a freshman, playing receiver and making key plays and big catches. He's been a special teams captain for us all year. He’s always ready to go. He, to me, is symbolic of the guys on this team – he’s gritty, tough, he’s a Crenshaw kid, he never says die, he knows how to fight through adversity, he prepares hard; it’s important to him. I really love that young man.”
on the play of Jordan Lasley
“It has been a tough road for Jordan. College is about learning, growing up, maturing through difficult times and persevering and learning how to manage your life. Jordan has had some struggles. But he has persevered. He has come back after three weeks away from this football team with, in my opinion, a different perspective, a little bit of a different approach, a little bit of a different attitude and I was proud of him tonight. Not only for the plays that he made but for the control that he showed when he did make plays and for him to be able to play with passion but harness it, and for him to be able to play with emotion but not become very emotional. He’s a guy that we need. Without Caleb Wilson and Darren Andrews, we have lost a lot of yards. We lost a lot of yards that was sitting on the bench in casts and knee braces, so to have Jordan come back with the great attitude that he did and play the way that he did, it makes you feel really good. I’m proud of him and I’m going to stay all over his butt to make sure that he continues down this path.”
on if Nate Meadors’ pick six changed the flow of the game
“I think we were down 14-0. We had given up an interception. They tried to run a screen and Marcus Moore got his hands up and tipped it and Nate got it and got in the end zone. When you can score on defense, statistically, it really improves your chances of winning. Conversely, when you give up a blocked punt on special teams, statistically, it affects your ability to win a game. Just a lot of resilience tonight, a lot of guys really played hard. We had a lot of energy on the sideline. I don’t know if you noticed it, but not a lot of guys were sitting on the bench. Guys were up cheering their teammates on and that’s something that we talked about, really enjoying this journey and this game, embracing these moments and it was good to see the young men do that.”
on Josh Rosen statistically settling in as the game went on
“I don’t know what his statistics were. At halftime he was just average. I don’t know what his final stats were. I’m not a big stats guy, you know. The only stat that really matters is the final score. Now there are statistics that obviously affect the final score. But statistics don’t always tell the whole story. Is he converting key third downs at key times? Is he throwing the ball away at the right time? Is he avoiding sacks? For me, it is always best, before I comment on that, to go back and look at the film and really analyze it before I make a statement that is misleading.”
UCLA Defensive Coordinator Tom Bradley
on the team’s defensive effort
"I think our guys played really well in the red zone. We held them to field goals, which in the end was obviously the turning point in this game."
on the play of his inside players
"I think everybody knows we are a little bit banged up there. I thought Krys Barnes played a really good football game tonight. Jacob Tuioti-Mariner had a very excellent game with the two sacks. I thought he played well against the run. Because we are a little bit short-handed inside, we didn’t substitute as much as we wanted to. They ran a lot of plays so our guys had to hang in there, and a couple times we got gassed a little inside."
on Nate Meadors’ pick-six
"I really thought that was a key play in the game. We’re down 14-0 and it looked like they had total control. We had great energy on the sideline, and I think that when that happened, we got back in it real quick. I thought the offense did a great job tonight. I thought we played a really great game."
UCLA Offensive Coordinator Jedd Fisch
on Josh Rosen
"I do think Josh’s rhythm … you know, he’s missed six quarters. He missed a week of practice. It probably took a little bit of time there. Once we got through that, I think he was 10-for-25 in the first half and I think he was 15-for-20 in the second half, so you’re talking about a huge jump. You’re in that 40 percent range, and then all of a sudden you’re in that 75 percent range. A couple plays that I know that him and Bolu will want to have a major meeting about when you get tackled on the half-yard line twice and instead of having three touchdowns, you only have one. But we’ll work through that. I love the energy of our football team tonight. I thought that we had some great talks this week. Some great talks and really made a huge focus on the passion, the energy and the enthusiasm, and I really think our guys are going to take that and run with it. It’s going to be fun … bedlam."
on running back substitutions
"It was exciting today. We had a pretty good rushing day it looked like. I thought we had great balance with those guys. That’s all up to DeShaun (Foster – running backs coach). I put that on DeShaun. So whatever DeShaun wants to play, he’ll put in during the course of the game. He understands that running back position more than anybody. He did it at an extremely high level. He can kind of understand that hot hand. He can also understand what they need. He’s fully responsible for the substitutions of the backs."
UCLA Running Back Bolu Olorunfunmi
on the energy of the team
“That was a big key we focused on this week in practice – having energy no matter what. Our sideline did a great job cheering us on and just being there. Their energy was our energy, and that’s what helped us to win tonight.”
on the play of the offensive line
“We knew they (ASU) were going to come in with a lot of starts and games on their d-line, and our offensive line did a great job tonight in blocking and just being outstanding, honestly. A lot of my success is their success. What they do is why I have success or why Josh has success. Executing and just being there, having protection, run blocking, anything. You name it, they did an excellent job tonight.”
UCLA Quarterback Josh Rosen
(on getting back out there)
"It felt great to be back. It took a second to get in the groove in the first half. But once we started moving, we worked well. I think we played pretty efficiently. I had a few errors that I can definitely clean up. I think we left a lot of yards and touchdowns on the field. But we got out with a win, so I think we just have to keep pushing forwards."
(on being aggressive)
"It’s whatever the defense tells me to do. And it’s a zone read, so I’m reading defensive end. If I want to run, I’ll run and I’ll get a few yards and get down, and if I want to give the ball, I’ll give the ball. You just kind of have to pull one every now and then just to keep them honest, and then maybe they’ll freeze up and you can give the running back the ball a few more times."
(on getting Jordan Lasley back)
"It was awesome. He’s explosive. He’s a great personality in the locker room. He’s motivating. It was good to have him."
Arizona State Head Coach Todd Graham
opening statement
“They did a good job. They made the plays when they needed to tonight, and we didn’t. Very disappointing. We had every opportunity to. We turned the football over and gave them seven points in the first half, miss a field goal and then we get down there and don’t score touchdowns when we should have. We rushed for 300 yards. You should win the football game. Disappointing to lose that one.”
on Nate Meadors’ pick six
“Completely changed the game. That can’t happen. It was very, very poor.”
on troubles scoring in the red zone
“I don’t know. You know, we ran the ball. We should have run the ball into the end zone every time we got into the red zone. We get behind the count and try to throw the ball and then kick field goals. Our guys played hard. I’m proud of the heart our guys played with. You know, they’re good, and obviously Rosen is a great player, and we didn’t sack him one time. I think we missed him four or five times; we should have had four or five sacks. So, you have to give him credit there. He’s going to get his yards, he’s going to get his things. I’m disappointed in the mental errors we made in the swing pass. Just a mental error. Left the running back out in coverage. We gave up some big plays like that, and we gave up too much against the run. We needed to make them one-dimensional, and we didn’t. They had some big runs on us and had some big passes, and you know he’s going to get those. We had the opportunity to really squelch them, and that wasn’t a good deal to put the ball in jeopardy there and the ball gets deflected. Nothing our players did; just a play where they deflected the ball.”
“But the story of the night - went for it on 4th and four. Thought we could make the four yards there; and I felt that we were having some difficulty stopping them. That was another big play, but we just played and made some undisciplined things that gave up big plays, and we had penalties that hurt us. Our guys showed great heart and battled, and I think we had a 3rd and 17 we converted. A great play going in where we needed to score and get a touchdown and had a chance to get the ball back. We had to get the onside kick there, and they did a great job defending that, but we had a chance to get it. I’m just disappointed because our guys have a lot of heart and a lot of great seniors in there, and that was one that you’ve got to give them credit. They made plays, but you know we ran 98 plays. Almost 580 yards of offense you should score more points than that. And the blocked punt - what a great job our guys are doing on that. The blocked punt for a touchdown was big, but the difference in the game was seven points, and we missed a field goal and then the interception for a touchdown. That’s a 10-point swing right there. It was a tough one for our seniors and a tough one for me because of that. These guys are a great group of guys. I don’t fault our kids at all. Not at all, I mean our kids gave us everything they had tonight, and I was really proud of them, how hard and the heart they competed with.”
on getting away from running the ball
“We were running the ball, and my whole deal coming in was tempo, and we did that in the first half. Then I feel like we never got the tempo at the rate I wanted it to be. But our goal was to run 100 plays. I think that they had 70 something plays, so we had 20 something more plays than they did. That’s on par to win. The difference is you have to score touchdowns. You can’t kick field goals. That was the difference, and we missed a field goal we usually make, and he’s been good. Field position was a little bit, you know we had a bad punt there that gave them good field position. Defensively we did lots of good things. We just gave up some big plays. The big play on the screen was a back-breaker, and then the post over the top that they got behind us on. But we got off the field decent on 3rd down. It was a close game, and we just made some undisciplined things, and then we just didn’t convert.”
on the struggles with pass rush
“I thought we got in there. He was hard to sack. I mean, I thought there was four or five times we could have sacked him that he did a tremendous job getting away. I knew that coming in he was going to have his yards. You’re just not going to stop him; he’s really, really good. Out of all the quarterbacks we’ve played, he’s the best we’ve played, and never in the game was I worried about not getting a pass rush. We were getting pressure; they weren’t just being highly efficient on third down. But the big thing was 1st down and getting chunks and a couple of big plays and a couple of big play runs and then the screen. The swing screen - that was just a mental error on our part.”