Postgame Quotes - UCLA vs. Fresno State
POSTGAME QUOTES
Fresno State 38, UCLA 14
Pasadena, Calif. (Rose Bowl)
September 15, 2018
UCLA head coach Chip Kelly
on his reaction with Dorian Thompson-Robinson after throwing the first interception
“I talk to him after any time that we go to the sidelines. We’ll watch film to find out what exactly went wrong. There are certain things that we’re looking for. And we’ll watch the tape, and then when we watch the tape we’ll make the necessary corrections from there.”
on the performance of Dorian Thompson-Robinson
“I thought he was up and down. There were times where he did some good things. He threw a great ball to our sideline, had a two-minute drive going and then we had an offensive tackle lined up in the backfield and that’s what the official called. Those things hurt us. There was a lot there to work with. There are things that we’ll be able to watch film and correct. The great thing about Dorian is that he doesn’t seem to make the same mistake more than once. The one thing that he lacks is experience. He’s getting it in games. That is part of the growing process.”
on the message to Dorian after his first interception
“Same answer that I just gave over there. We always talk in between series. What is he looking for and how did he interpret what it was and what it looked like? We can’t make all the corrections until we see the film. We’ll get a chance to sit down with him. But most of the time when he’s coming over to the sideline, I just want to know what he saw through his eyes. It is easy to second guess and to coach from the sidelines and the stands, but you don’t see it the same way that the quarterback sees it – from him and what went into his decision-making process.”
on Fresno State having some long, sustained drives on offense
“Jeff [Tedford] has always done a nice job, offensively. I thought that we had a pretty good handle on them after those first two initial drives. We put out defense into bad situations in the second half after we’d turned the football over. I think that they were on the field too much. We need to hold onto the ball better. And then a couple of those drives in the second half, we extended. We had a roughing-the-passer penalty that extended the drive when we probably had them stopped. We’ll have to watch tape. We need to coach our guys up, see why the officials called that penalty and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”
on the impact of running backs Kazmeir Allen and Bolu Olorunfunmi
“We’re just rotating those guys. I think you saw Bolu and Soso [Jamabo] and [Martell] Irby and Kaz, so it depends on what we’re running and what we’re calling. There are certain things that all those guys do well and we just want to play to their strengths.”
on if he feels deflated right now
“That’s not the case. No one feels sorry for you. We look at every week as its own, individual week. We’re preparing for who our opponent is. We knew that this was a really good football team. They won 10 football games last year. We knew that it is one of the best teams in the Mountain West. We had to be prepared to play them, and obviously, they did a better job. They out-coached us and they out-played us today.”
on how well UCLA’s running back rotation operated
“I don’t think that we got into any good rhythm on the offensive side of the ball. There is a lot to it. It’s not just the running backs. It’s the offensive line. We had a couple of key drops early. We had a couple of overthrows. It’s everybody contributing. We didn’t really get into a rhythm and that hurt us.”
on the difficulty on offense when the running game struggles
“It’s difficult when you can’t be balanced and people can kind of gang up on one aspect of you. We did a good job of capitalizing on the fumble punt, and Dorian did a good job of finding Theo [Howard] in that situation. We need sustained drives. To have sustained drives, you need to run the football. We need to do a better job up front and of running the football.”
on last week maybe being a step forward and tonight being a step backward
“I don’t look at it that way. We just want to get ready to play Colorado. So, I mean, I think that you can take a macro look at what your season looks like, forward, backwards, or those other things. But if I say it’s forwards or backwards, it doesn’t mean anything. What did we do wrong, and how do we improve upon that and learn from that? That’s what our whole process is with these guys. There are some places we can get better in. And specifically, you can’t turn the ball over like we turned the ball over and you can’t have that many penalties and expect to be in football games. That’s what we have to clean up, at this point.”
Fresno State head coach Jeff Tedford
on what it means to beat UCLA
“It’s not so much for me, it’s more for our players who put in the hard work throughout the offseason. This started way back in January, and a lot of investment has gone into this as far as their hard work, and their energy. I’m more proud of the players. I’ve been here a lot, you know with Oregon, with Cal, so this is much more about the players than about me.”
on playing against UCLA’s defense
“We just had to be patient, really. They stack the box and make it hard for you to run, so we knew we weren’t going to be gashing big runs in there. We needed to stay on schedule, which means third and manageable, and I thought we did that. I thought Kalen [DeBoer], the offensive coordinator, and the offensive staff did a great job. I thought Kalen called a really good game. We took our shots when we needed to, and guys came down with the ball. [UCLA is] really good outside, and they played a lot of press, especially in the second half. Jamire [Jordan] came up with a big catch and KeeSean [Johnson] came up with a few. They challenged for the ball and made plays. Against a talented team like that, what it comes down to is making plays.”
on how the offense performed after a tough loss to Minnesota
“The Minnesota game was over. We let that go on Sunday. It was unfortunate it turned out like it did, but we just went back to work. You can’t carry that thing with you. I was very pleased how we rebounded. We came out on Tuesday with a lot of energy and a lot of focus. We put a game plan together, and the team work really hard all week long. That was a total team effort tonight. I thought the defense played really phenomenal and got a lot of pressure on the passer, got their hands on some balls. Any time you can win the turnover battle you have a chance to win.”
on winning against a school like UCLA
“I really don’t look at it as any different, to tell you the truth. I look at us as equal as anybody else. I never get caught up on Group of Five or Power Five. Typically, we go in to games thinking we have a chance to win every game no matter who we play. I don’t pay attention to teams around the country to see who won or lost throughout the day. We just focus on today, but this is obviously a nice win for our program. UCLA has great tradition. They have great players on their team. A lot of highly recruited players, very well coached football team. But I thought our guys came out with a little focus tonight. I was really proud of them down the stretch when we fumbled the punt. [UCLA] got back in it and for us to respond, it would have been really easy for it to go the other way. But, I thought we responded really well.”
UCLA quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson
on assessing his performance
“There is always room for improvement, but I think I followed the game plan pretty well and I did what I could.”
on the message from head coach Chip Kelly
“Just asked me what I was seeing. I gave him an answer and it was just move on.”
on what he told his head coach after throwing his first interception
“We planned for a look. They gave me that look. I told him I saw that look and that was it.”
on not having a win, after putting in so much effort in three games
“I come from a background of not losing very much, so this is definitely something new to me and something I have to get used to. Some of my actions tonight were not up to standard for being a quarterback at all, so I apologize to my team for that. Those things have to get corrected and just staying positive and leaning on each other.”
on how Fresno State broke away after UCLA cut the Bulldogs’ lead to 16-14
“Basically, it came down to penalties that didn’t need to be made and mistakes here and there. We need to communicate more on both sides of the ball. I think that was the biggest thing that killed us, and we’ll have to clean up.”
UCLA wide receiver Theo Howard
on the Bruins’ offense
“Obviously it’s a brand-new offense. We’re still working on gelling and getting together. We have new faces on the line. We have true freshman who are playing at receiver and at the running back spot. So, everybody is just getting used to each other and just trying to play. It’s a process but we will get there we just have to keep faith.”
on using prior experience to determine how tough this game was
“It was tough. Obviously, my freshman year wasn’t really a great year for UCLA and that was tough but tonight was different. But like I said, we can’t dwell on this. We have a bye week. We can fully take advantage of that, get film in and study Colorado and just get back to it.”
on trying to keep the game’s momentum, after reducing Fresno State’s lead to 16-14
“It all goes back to penalties, again. Once we got a drive going and got a penalty, or defense is on third down and we have a penalty, that lets them keep their drive going. And it all comes down to making the least amount of mistakes. Kudos to Fresno. They made the least amount of mistakes tonight, so that’s why they won.”
UCLA safety Quentin Lake
on how the team can improve and overcome adversity
“It’s mainly due to quick changes, especially when the offense turns the ball over. It’s about attitude and how we come on the field. I think, overall as a team, we can have a better attitude when getting onto the field and not get down on ourselves when sudden changes happen – like the offense turns over the ball or defense gives up a big play. It’s just a matter of how we can pick up our team. It’s also about penalties. I know I had one in the game where it was kind of in a gray area for roughing the passer. You always want to get the big hit on the quarterback, but there’s a gray area of when you should let off or when you should keep going. I would say it comes down to penalties, and that’s something we’ll work on in practice. It’s a big learning lesson, and it’s still early in the season.”
on cutting the lead to 16-14 before Fresno State pulled ahead late in the second half
“Defensively in the back end, we had disciplined eyes. They were doing a lot of motion and misdirection. I told the guys to calm down, read run-pass keys and to have good eyes. We just started to hustle and started out awesome. I could see our weight room preparations start to kick in. It wasn’t mainly due to scheme stuff. We just played with more effort and more energy. That’s the biggest thing that came out of the second quarter.”
on how he feels about UCLA’s defense, through three games
“We got off to a slow start, especially this game. It’s a matter of our attitude, again. You saw during the Oklahoma game we came out strong with the three-and-out, which was awesome. During this game, I wouldn’t say we underestimated our opponent. But we weren’t at the level of mental preparation where we wanted to be. Three games into the season is still early. We still have the whole Pac-12 [schedule] to get through. It’s a learning process. We have a lot of young guys, on defense and on offense. Defensively, I think we’re going to step it up. You’re going to see us at practice working even harder [and] have our guys learn self-criticism, which is the biggest thing. Especially me and some of the older veteran guys, we can do a better job of self-criticism on the younger guys and even on ourselves. We have to take this team by our hands, put it in our hands. I would say even though we’re 0-3, defensively, we have a lot of potential. We’re going to come out strong in the Pac-12. I know we have hope in our defense."
Fresno State 38, UCLA 14
Pasadena, Calif. (Rose Bowl)
September 15, 2018
UCLA head coach Chip Kelly
on his reaction with Dorian Thompson-Robinson after throwing the first interception
“I talk to him after any time that we go to the sidelines. We’ll watch film to find out what exactly went wrong. There are certain things that we’re looking for. And we’ll watch the tape, and then when we watch the tape we’ll make the necessary corrections from there.”
on the performance of Dorian Thompson-Robinson
“I thought he was up and down. There were times where he did some good things. He threw a great ball to our sideline, had a two-minute drive going and then we had an offensive tackle lined up in the backfield and that’s what the official called. Those things hurt us. There was a lot there to work with. There are things that we’ll be able to watch film and correct. The great thing about Dorian is that he doesn’t seem to make the same mistake more than once. The one thing that he lacks is experience. He’s getting it in games. That is part of the growing process.”
on the message to Dorian after his first interception
“Same answer that I just gave over there. We always talk in between series. What is he looking for and how did he interpret what it was and what it looked like? We can’t make all the corrections until we see the film. We’ll get a chance to sit down with him. But most of the time when he’s coming over to the sideline, I just want to know what he saw through his eyes. It is easy to second guess and to coach from the sidelines and the stands, but you don’t see it the same way that the quarterback sees it – from him and what went into his decision-making process.”
on Fresno State having some long, sustained drives on offense
“Jeff [Tedford] has always done a nice job, offensively. I thought that we had a pretty good handle on them after those first two initial drives. We put out defense into bad situations in the second half after we’d turned the football over. I think that they were on the field too much. We need to hold onto the ball better. And then a couple of those drives in the second half, we extended. We had a roughing-the-passer penalty that extended the drive when we probably had them stopped. We’ll have to watch tape. We need to coach our guys up, see why the officials called that penalty and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”
on the impact of running backs Kazmeir Allen and Bolu Olorunfunmi
“We’re just rotating those guys. I think you saw Bolu and Soso [Jamabo] and [Martell] Irby and Kaz, so it depends on what we’re running and what we’re calling. There are certain things that all those guys do well and we just want to play to their strengths.”
on if he feels deflated right now
“That’s not the case. No one feels sorry for you. We look at every week as its own, individual week. We’re preparing for who our opponent is. We knew that this was a really good football team. They won 10 football games last year. We knew that it is one of the best teams in the Mountain West. We had to be prepared to play them, and obviously, they did a better job. They out-coached us and they out-played us today.”
on how well UCLA’s running back rotation operated
“I don’t think that we got into any good rhythm on the offensive side of the ball. There is a lot to it. It’s not just the running backs. It’s the offensive line. We had a couple of key drops early. We had a couple of overthrows. It’s everybody contributing. We didn’t really get into a rhythm and that hurt us.”
on the difficulty on offense when the running game struggles
“It’s difficult when you can’t be balanced and people can kind of gang up on one aspect of you. We did a good job of capitalizing on the fumble punt, and Dorian did a good job of finding Theo [Howard] in that situation. We need sustained drives. To have sustained drives, you need to run the football. We need to do a better job up front and of running the football.”
on last week maybe being a step forward and tonight being a step backward
“I don’t look at it that way. We just want to get ready to play Colorado. So, I mean, I think that you can take a macro look at what your season looks like, forward, backwards, or those other things. But if I say it’s forwards or backwards, it doesn’t mean anything. What did we do wrong, and how do we improve upon that and learn from that? That’s what our whole process is with these guys. There are some places we can get better in. And specifically, you can’t turn the ball over like we turned the ball over and you can’t have that many penalties and expect to be in football games. That’s what we have to clean up, at this point.”
Fresno State head coach Jeff Tedford
on what it means to beat UCLA
“It’s not so much for me, it’s more for our players who put in the hard work throughout the offseason. This started way back in January, and a lot of investment has gone into this as far as their hard work, and their energy. I’m more proud of the players. I’ve been here a lot, you know with Oregon, with Cal, so this is much more about the players than about me.”
on playing against UCLA’s defense
“We just had to be patient, really. They stack the box and make it hard for you to run, so we knew we weren’t going to be gashing big runs in there. We needed to stay on schedule, which means third and manageable, and I thought we did that. I thought Kalen [DeBoer], the offensive coordinator, and the offensive staff did a great job. I thought Kalen called a really good game. We took our shots when we needed to, and guys came down with the ball. [UCLA is] really good outside, and they played a lot of press, especially in the second half. Jamire [Jordan] came up with a big catch and KeeSean [Johnson] came up with a few. They challenged for the ball and made plays. Against a talented team like that, what it comes down to is making plays.”
on how the offense performed after a tough loss to Minnesota
“The Minnesota game was over. We let that go on Sunday. It was unfortunate it turned out like it did, but we just went back to work. You can’t carry that thing with you. I was very pleased how we rebounded. We came out on Tuesday with a lot of energy and a lot of focus. We put a game plan together, and the team work really hard all week long. That was a total team effort tonight. I thought the defense played really phenomenal and got a lot of pressure on the passer, got their hands on some balls. Any time you can win the turnover battle you have a chance to win.”
on winning against a school like UCLA
“I really don’t look at it as any different, to tell you the truth. I look at us as equal as anybody else. I never get caught up on Group of Five or Power Five. Typically, we go in to games thinking we have a chance to win every game no matter who we play. I don’t pay attention to teams around the country to see who won or lost throughout the day. We just focus on today, but this is obviously a nice win for our program. UCLA has great tradition. They have great players on their team. A lot of highly recruited players, very well coached football team. But I thought our guys came out with a little focus tonight. I was really proud of them down the stretch when we fumbled the punt. [UCLA] got back in it and for us to respond, it would have been really easy for it to go the other way. But, I thought we responded really well.”
UCLA quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson
on assessing his performance
“There is always room for improvement, but I think I followed the game plan pretty well and I did what I could.”
on the message from head coach Chip Kelly
“Just asked me what I was seeing. I gave him an answer and it was just move on.”
on what he told his head coach after throwing his first interception
“We planned for a look. They gave me that look. I told him I saw that look and that was it.”
on not having a win, after putting in so much effort in three games
“I come from a background of not losing very much, so this is definitely something new to me and something I have to get used to. Some of my actions tonight were not up to standard for being a quarterback at all, so I apologize to my team for that. Those things have to get corrected and just staying positive and leaning on each other.”
on how Fresno State broke away after UCLA cut the Bulldogs’ lead to 16-14
“Basically, it came down to penalties that didn’t need to be made and mistakes here and there. We need to communicate more on both sides of the ball. I think that was the biggest thing that killed us, and we’ll have to clean up.”
UCLA wide receiver Theo Howard
on the Bruins’ offense
“Obviously it’s a brand-new offense. We’re still working on gelling and getting together. We have new faces on the line. We have true freshman who are playing at receiver and at the running back spot. So, everybody is just getting used to each other and just trying to play. It’s a process but we will get there we just have to keep faith.”
on using prior experience to determine how tough this game was
“It was tough. Obviously, my freshman year wasn’t really a great year for UCLA and that was tough but tonight was different. But like I said, we can’t dwell on this. We have a bye week. We can fully take advantage of that, get film in and study Colorado and just get back to it.”
on trying to keep the game’s momentum, after reducing Fresno State’s lead to 16-14
“It all goes back to penalties, again. Once we got a drive going and got a penalty, or defense is on third down and we have a penalty, that lets them keep their drive going. And it all comes down to making the least amount of mistakes. Kudos to Fresno. They made the least amount of mistakes tonight, so that’s why they won.”
UCLA safety Quentin Lake
on how the team can improve and overcome adversity
“It’s mainly due to quick changes, especially when the offense turns the ball over. It’s about attitude and how we come on the field. I think, overall as a team, we can have a better attitude when getting onto the field and not get down on ourselves when sudden changes happen – like the offense turns over the ball or defense gives up a big play. It’s just a matter of how we can pick up our team. It’s also about penalties. I know I had one in the game where it was kind of in a gray area for roughing the passer. You always want to get the big hit on the quarterback, but there’s a gray area of when you should let off or when you should keep going. I would say it comes down to penalties, and that’s something we’ll work on in practice. It’s a big learning lesson, and it’s still early in the season.”
on cutting the lead to 16-14 before Fresno State pulled ahead late in the second half
“Defensively in the back end, we had disciplined eyes. They were doing a lot of motion and misdirection. I told the guys to calm down, read run-pass keys and to have good eyes. We just started to hustle and started out awesome. I could see our weight room preparations start to kick in. It wasn’t mainly due to scheme stuff. We just played with more effort and more energy. That’s the biggest thing that came out of the second quarter.”
on how he feels about UCLA’s defense, through three games
“We got off to a slow start, especially this game. It’s a matter of our attitude, again. You saw during the Oklahoma game we came out strong with the three-and-out, which was awesome. During this game, I wouldn’t say we underestimated our opponent. But we weren’t at the level of mental preparation where we wanted to be. Three games into the season is still early. We still have the whole Pac-12 [schedule] to get through. It’s a learning process. We have a lot of young guys, on defense and on offense. Defensively, I think we’re going to step it up. You’re going to see us at practice working even harder [and] have our guys learn self-criticism, which is the biggest thing. Especially me and some of the older veteran guys, we can do a better job of self-criticism on the younger guys and even on ourselves. We have to take this team by our hands, put it in our hands. I would say even though we’re 0-3, defensively, we have a lot of potential. We’re going to come out strong in the Pac-12. I know we have hope in our defense."