Postgame Quotes – UCLA vs. Arizona State
POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 42, Arizona State 32
Pasadena, Calif. (Rose Bowl)
October 26, 2019
UCLA head coach Chip Kelly
opening remarks
“Proud of how our guys played. We still have a lot of things that we have to work on, things we’ve got to do. It’s still a young football team, but they have gotten better week by week, and we will continue to grow as a team.”
on the team’s defensive improvement
“It’s a total team game. It’s not a one-sided affair where one side of the ball handles everything. The only points that we gave up in the first half was because we had turned the ball over inside the 10-yard line. If we had not done that, we may have had a shutout going into halftime. But those are lessons we need to learn. We can’t turn the ball over consistently. We gave one up late and that hurt us. But I’m really happy with how our defense played last week against Stanford, and I’m happy with how they played today. But we need to continue to build on that.”
on the dominance of the team’s offensive line
“It’s a young group. But I think that they’re starting to gel and come together. When you have played seven or eight games, as we’ve played now, it’s the same group that has been consistent. We have been fortunate enough, knock on wood, that we haven’t had injuries with that thing. We obviously have a very talented running back behind them. Really, our tight ends do not get enough credit for how well they do in the run game and the things that they give us. When you have a quarterback who can affect the defense – he has the ability to run – it’s a combination of everybody. And when you can run the football, you have a shot. With some of those 10, 12, 14-play drives, when we are downhill and physical, you know, I think that’s really benefitting us.”
on if that was part of the plan to use Kazmeir Allen, Ethan Fernea and Martell Irby
“That’s how we had practiced all week long. It was good to get Kaz back. We are starting to get some guys healthy, in terms of Martell. And then Ethan is a kid who has really come along from a practice standpoint. We always believe that you sink to your level of training. How well you train during the week really affects what we’ll do from a game plan standpoint. Those guys have really shown up in our training sessions, and what you guys are seeing on Saturday night is what we’ve seen as coaches. Ethan had a big fourth down reception for us and another one on third down, getting us into the red zone. It’s good to have some depth behind Josh. As the season goes along, there is a certain attrition from an injury standpoint that you’ll have. I think that we’re getting healthier right now, but to have some depth behind Josh with Irbs and Kaz has helped us.”
on the status of quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson
“I know the same as you. I know he has a left leg injury and that’s it. I have not talked to the trainers.”
on the performance of Joshua Kelley
“I think that his ability to help us finish games, too, when everybody in the stadium knows you’re going to run the ball and you’re still able to run the ball, that’s a credit to the whole group but really the mindset that Josh has. When Josh plays well, we have a shot. And Josh played well tonight.”
on wide receiver Ethan Fernea
“He had initially been a special teams player for us. And really, he has done a great role on teams. But you sit in meetings and say, ‘Hey that’s another great play by Ethan.’ And then we start to talk about how we can get him involved in the game plan. It’s really a credit to him. I think that for all of our guys, we are obsessed with improvement as a group. It’s not just about status quo. Can I be better today that I was yesterday? Can I continue to grasp that concept? Ethan is a guy who has really personified that concept. I couldn’t be more happy for a kid, when you talk about a success story. All he has ever wanted was a shot and he has taken advantage of it. It’s a cool story, and we are really pleased with him right now.”
on if he believes that a program can have momentum
“I think that there are positives you can build on from a win. But I don’t think that you can say, ‘Hey, we won last week so we’re going to win this week. We had a huge win over Washington State in one of the biggest comebacks in Pac-12 history, and then we lost by a field goal at the end of the game to lose to Arizona the next week. So, that would squash the momentum question. I wish momentum, that you could just put it in the bank. We won last week, so we’re going to win again this week. But for some reason, it doesn’t work that way. We need to look at what we did well and continue to build on that and then understand that we did that well because of how we practiced earlier in the week. There is a correlation from a momentum standpoint that these guys are starting to stack good days upon good days when we’re on the field training, and understanding that that is how we play when we get to Saturday night. We can’t be up and down from a training perspective and expect not to be up and down when we play games. And that is what we need to continue to understand. I think there are things that we can point to, and that’s a good point, but let’s emphasize what we did well and continue to do those things well.”
on the personal fouls and targeting in the fourth quarter and what he had heard from the officials
“I thought they were great in communicating the whole time with us. If there wasn’t a targeting penalty, then the two-point play wouldn’t have stood. But those two personal fouls would have been executed on the kickoff. So they would’ve been kicking off from our 30, so that would have put us in a harmful situation. But if the targeting was ruled, then they got to replay that down and the penalty goes on that down. You don’t get to carry it over. But they were great in terms of communicating. They did a good job of getting together themselves and making the right call. It was a unique situation. You had two penalties on the play, and then in college football, the replay official can buzz down on a targeting call. It ends up being three, and then one of them trumps the other one. So, I just listened.”
on UCLA not committing any penalties until late in the third quarter
“From a penalty standpoint, we try to avoid SIWs, which are self-inflicted wounds. I think there is a right way to the play game. You need to play with a certain amount of aggression but you cannot get the stupid penalties, the administrative penalties before the ball is snapped. We have gotten better. We were a little sloppy at the end. It is something that we harp on. The problems in victory and the problems in defeat are no less difficult. You feel a bit better tonight, but we’ve got to show up tomorrow and we’ve facing really good Colorado team that took USC the distance [on Friday night]. You’ve got to show up every week in this league. How our week of training goes is how we’ll perform when we play next Saturday.”
on a young UCLA team receiving the message and moving past the Stanford win
“It’s the growing process that you go through when you have 87 freshmen and sophomores. But the best thing that I can say is that the baby Bruins are growing up and it is fun to see. It’s fun to watch. Nobody feels sorry for you because you are young. We need to get a ton of at-bats and a ton of reps. We need to continue to play the game. You have to continue to play football to get better at football. If you look where this team was when we opened on August 31 to where we are now, I think that we’ve grown as a group. We are pleased with where we are, but we aren’t satisfied with where we are. We have to continue to grow as a group. The only shortcut to where we are going is hard work. If they continue to work hard, then good things will happen to them. Why do we have momentum? Because of how we trained. We need to work really hard this week and prepare for a really good Colorado team that’s coming in here.”
on whether he has told his team still controls their own destiny in the Pac-12 South
“No, to be honest with you. Grammatically, destiny is a predetermined set of events, and if it’s a predetermined set of events you can’t control it. Think about that one.”
Arizona State head coach Herm Edwards
opening remarks
“Obviously the game didn’t start out like we anticipated. Fell behind. For me, it was more than just the score. It was our emotions. We didn’t handle it very good. At times, I just felt like we had no energy early in the football game. Got in there at halftime, just flat told them, ‘If you continue to play like this, I don’t know what the score’s gonna be, I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Second half we’ve got to play better.’ Win the second half, that’s all I was concerned about. Get your mojo back, and play like you’re capable of playing, and to their credit they played a lot better in the second half. To play a game like that – since I’ve been here we’ve never been involved in – I can’t explain it. It looked like a different football team out there. I told them after the game ‘The score hurt, and it should hurt. You’ve gotta feel bad about this, we’ve got some corrections to do, we’ve got to do a better job of coaching, and we’ve got to a do a much better job of playing.’ ”
on if last week’s loss to Utah carried over to the UCLA game
“I don’t know that so much. The emotions of young people, they vary. That’s not an excuse. They just do. How they handle, and how we handle as coaches is important, too. Can we get them focused in on what they need to do, and we were not. We weren’t very focused early in this football game. You’ve got to give UCLA credit, I don’t want to take anything away from UCLA. They did a marvelous job. They ran the football, they did some things defensively where we couldn’t move the ball early in the game. The second half was more competitive. We’re a 5-3 football team right now, we’ve got to build. Going through this, we’re going to find out a lot about the young guys in the locker room and about the seniors, too. Who wants to lead, who wants to step up? [Jayden Daniels] was fine, going through all this he never thought about coming out of the game. He wanted to play and finish with his football team and put some points on the board. In the second half, we got it going and they had some nice drives, made some nice throws and some guys made some nice catches.”
on UCLA’s Joshua Kelley
“We missed some gaps. This is different because we had 80 plays last year, and they had 80 this year. It’s an almost complete reversal. We ran the ball for 280 yards, it’s a complete reversal. We ran the ball at times but we got so far behind that we had to throw it.”
on defensive miscues on third and fourth downs
“There were fouls. One the guy caught and we thought he was out of bounds but he was in bounds on third and 14. We got to clean that up. We had six penalties in the first half, three in the second half, and that’s too many. We usually average five a game, and if we can average that you’re playing pretty good, but we didn’t do that.”
on the mental effects of close calls
“Not only do we have a young team, but the coaches are too. I’m not one of them, I don’t let that bother me, I don’t get involved in officiating. I just don’t. It’s part of the game. When it goes your way, you don’t say anything. At the end, I think it works out with the football gods. It just does. I’ve been in enough games that I look at it that way. They’ve got a hard job, and they’re under scrutiny all the time. Officials never have a home game no matter where they’re at. They’re always on the road and with how many handkerchiefs they throw out – someone’s gonna be sad. They have a hard job, I respect those guys.”
UCLA running back Joshua Kelley
on his offensive line
“I could talk all day about the offensive line. They’re amazing. Those guys are awesome for us, as a team. They played amazing tonight. They knew that they had a big challenge tonight, going up against a great defense. They were flat-out amazing. We can’t do what we did without that offensive line. They were spectacular. They deserve all the credit.”
on scoring a career-high four touchdowns
“You know, I like playing at the Rose Bowl. We needed a win here, for sure. We haven’t had a win at home this season. So that was an extra incentive for us. But our offensive line was so amazing. I can’t do that without them. Dorian was making plays. Kyle was making plays.”
on his thoughts on momentum in the game of football and stringing together wins
“Oh yeah, it feels great to win. As far as to win football games, as you guys know, the Pac-12 has probably the most parity in all of the conferences in college football. You never know who is going to win each Saturday. But for us to get back-to-back wins, that’s big for us, especially for our young guys. Things are starting to come together, so we’ve just got to stick to it.”
on how much of a lift the defense provided in the game tonight
“Our defense, they were amazing from the start. I feel like in every single game that we play, we open up with our defense on the field. They step up to the challenge. They make sure to create turnovers and get three-and-outs. And, you know, earlier in the season, they were carrying us, too. Our defense has been awesome. Our front seven is amazing. Our DBs are great.”
on seeing Kazmeir Allen and Martell Irby get in the game
“I get excited when you guys mention them. They’re the future. They are amazing and they are going to be the guys. It’s awesome to see them get a chance to play. We miss Kaz, we miss Martell, and we got Felt [Demetric Felton] too, so we’ve got so many guys. It’s awesome, because I see those guys everyday. I saw those guys when they first got here, and to see their growth and maturity, it kind of makes me get emotional. Those guys deserve it. They’re going to be superstars, for sure.”
on where this win ranks among his UCLA memories and achievements
“It’s just good to get the win, you know. I think that individual success, that’s fine and all, but the things that you’re going to remember forever are the winning moments and just sharing those moments in the locker room with the guys. That’s what you play for. It’s just so amazing to be there in that moment. It’s nice to score touchdowns, but sharing the moment with your guys, you can’t score without your offensive line.”
UCLA wide receiver Ethan Fernea
on getting his first catches of the year
“Pretty surreal feeling. I’ve been dreaming about making catches in the Rose Bowl for a really long time now. So yeah, I’m just happy that I could make a few plays when I got called upon.”
on the fourth-down play that he converted
“Fourth and short, I saw man coverage so I thought there was a chance it might come to me. Great job by Dorian [Thompson-Robinson] getting the ball out quick, because they brought a lot of pressure. It was pretty nerve-wracking getting out there for my first catch, big fourth down, but I’m glad I could make a play.”
UCLA 42, Arizona State 32
Pasadena, Calif. (Rose Bowl)
October 26, 2019
UCLA head coach Chip Kelly
opening remarks
“Proud of how our guys played. We still have a lot of things that we have to work on, things we’ve got to do. It’s still a young football team, but they have gotten better week by week, and we will continue to grow as a team.”
on the team’s defensive improvement
“It’s a total team game. It’s not a one-sided affair where one side of the ball handles everything. The only points that we gave up in the first half was because we had turned the ball over inside the 10-yard line. If we had not done that, we may have had a shutout going into halftime. But those are lessons we need to learn. We can’t turn the ball over consistently. We gave one up late and that hurt us. But I’m really happy with how our defense played last week against Stanford, and I’m happy with how they played today. But we need to continue to build on that.”
on the dominance of the team’s offensive line
“It’s a young group. But I think that they’re starting to gel and come together. When you have played seven or eight games, as we’ve played now, it’s the same group that has been consistent. We have been fortunate enough, knock on wood, that we haven’t had injuries with that thing. We obviously have a very talented running back behind them. Really, our tight ends do not get enough credit for how well they do in the run game and the things that they give us. When you have a quarterback who can affect the defense – he has the ability to run – it’s a combination of everybody. And when you can run the football, you have a shot. With some of those 10, 12, 14-play drives, when we are downhill and physical, you know, I think that’s really benefitting us.”
on if that was part of the plan to use Kazmeir Allen, Ethan Fernea and Martell Irby
“That’s how we had practiced all week long. It was good to get Kaz back. We are starting to get some guys healthy, in terms of Martell. And then Ethan is a kid who has really come along from a practice standpoint. We always believe that you sink to your level of training. How well you train during the week really affects what we’ll do from a game plan standpoint. Those guys have really shown up in our training sessions, and what you guys are seeing on Saturday night is what we’ve seen as coaches. Ethan had a big fourth down reception for us and another one on third down, getting us into the red zone. It’s good to have some depth behind Josh. As the season goes along, there is a certain attrition from an injury standpoint that you’ll have. I think that we’re getting healthier right now, but to have some depth behind Josh with Irbs and Kaz has helped us.”
on the status of quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson
“I know the same as you. I know he has a left leg injury and that’s it. I have not talked to the trainers.”
on the performance of Joshua Kelley
“I think that his ability to help us finish games, too, when everybody in the stadium knows you’re going to run the ball and you’re still able to run the ball, that’s a credit to the whole group but really the mindset that Josh has. When Josh plays well, we have a shot. And Josh played well tonight.”
on wide receiver Ethan Fernea
“He had initially been a special teams player for us. And really, he has done a great role on teams. But you sit in meetings and say, ‘Hey that’s another great play by Ethan.’ And then we start to talk about how we can get him involved in the game plan. It’s really a credit to him. I think that for all of our guys, we are obsessed with improvement as a group. It’s not just about status quo. Can I be better today that I was yesterday? Can I continue to grasp that concept? Ethan is a guy who has really personified that concept. I couldn’t be more happy for a kid, when you talk about a success story. All he has ever wanted was a shot and he has taken advantage of it. It’s a cool story, and we are really pleased with him right now.”
on if he believes that a program can have momentum
“I think that there are positives you can build on from a win. But I don’t think that you can say, ‘Hey, we won last week so we’re going to win this week. We had a huge win over Washington State in one of the biggest comebacks in Pac-12 history, and then we lost by a field goal at the end of the game to lose to Arizona the next week. So, that would squash the momentum question. I wish momentum, that you could just put it in the bank. We won last week, so we’re going to win again this week. But for some reason, it doesn’t work that way. We need to look at what we did well and continue to build on that and then understand that we did that well because of how we practiced earlier in the week. There is a correlation from a momentum standpoint that these guys are starting to stack good days upon good days when we’re on the field training, and understanding that that is how we play when we get to Saturday night. We can’t be up and down from a training perspective and expect not to be up and down when we play games. And that is what we need to continue to understand. I think there are things that we can point to, and that’s a good point, but let’s emphasize what we did well and continue to do those things well.”
on the personal fouls and targeting in the fourth quarter and what he had heard from the officials
“I thought they were great in communicating the whole time with us. If there wasn’t a targeting penalty, then the two-point play wouldn’t have stood. But those two personal fouls would have been executed on the kickoff. So they would’ve been kicking off from our 30, so that would have put us in a harmful situation. But if the targeting was ruled, then they got to replay that down and the penalty goes on that down. You don’t get to carry it over. But they were great in terms of communicating. They did a good job of getting together themselves and making the right call. It was a unique situation. You had two penalties on the play, and then in college football, the replay official can buzz down on a targeting call. It ends up being three, and then one of them trumps the other one. So, I just listened.”
on UCLA not committing any penalties until late in the third quarter
“From a penalty standpoint, we try to avoid SIWs, which are self-inflicted wounds. I think there is a right way to the play game. You need to play with a certain amount of aggression but you cannot get the stupid penalties, the administrative penalties before the ball is snapped. We have gotten better. We were a little sloppy at the end. It is something that we harp on. The problems in victory and the problems in defeat are no less difficult. You feel a bit better tonight, but we’ve got to show up tomorrow and we’ve facing really good Colorado team that took USC the distance [on Friday night]. You’ve got to show up every week in this league. How our week of training goes is how we’ll perform when we play next Saturday.”
on a young UCLA team receiving the message and moving past the Stanford win
“It’s the growing process that you go through when you have 87 freshmen and sophomores. But the best thing that I can say is that the baby Bruins are growing up and it is fun to see. It’s fun to watch. Nobody feels sorry for you because you are young. We need to get a ton of at-bats and a ton of reps. We need to continue to play the game. You have to continue to play football to get better at football. If you look where this team was when we opened on August 31 to where we are now, I think that we’ve grown as a group. We are pleased with where we are, but we aren’t satisfied with where we are. We have to continue to grow as a group. The only shortcut to where we are going is hard work. If they continue to work hard, then good things will happen to them. Why do we have momentum? Because of how we trained. We need to work really hard this week and prepare for a really good Colorado team that’s coming in here.”
on whether he has told his team still controls their own destiny in the Pac-12 South
“No, to be honest with you. Grammatically, destiny is a predetermined set of events, and if it’s a predetermined set of events you can’t control it. Think about that one.”
Arizona State head coach Herm Edwards
opening remarks
“Obviously the game didn’t start out like we anticipated. Fell behind. For me, it was more than just the score. It was our emotions. We didn’t handle it very good. At times, I just felt like we had no energy early in the football game. Got in there at halftime, just flat told them, ‘If you continue to play like this, I don’t know what the score’s gonna be, I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Second half we’ve got to play better.’ Win the second half, that’s all I was concerned about. Get your mojo back, and play like you’re capable of playing, and to their credit they played a lot better in the second half. To play a game like that – since I’ve been here we’ve never been involved in – I can’t explain it. It looked like a different football team out there. I told them after the game ‘The score hurt, and it should hurt. You’ve gotta feel bad about this, we’ve got some corrections to do, we’ve got to do a better job of coaching, and we’ve got to a do a much better job of playing.’ ”
on if last week’s loss to Utah carried over to the UCLA game
“I don’t know that so much. The emotions of young people, they vary. That’s not an excuse. They just do. How they handle, and how we handle as coaches is important, too. Can we get them focused in on what they need to do, and we were not. We weren’t very focused early in this football game. You’ve got to give UCLA credit, I don’t want to take anything away from UCLA. They did a marvelous job. They ran the football, they did some things defensively where we couldn’t move the ball early in the game. The second half was more competitive. We’re a 5-3 football team right now, we’ve got to build. Going through this, we’re going to find out a lot about the young guys in the locker room and about the seniors, too. Who wants to lead, who wants to step up? [Jayden Daniels] was fine, going through all this he never thought about coming out of the game. He wanted to play and finish with his football team and put some points on the board. In the second half, we got it going and they had some nice drives, made some nice throws and some guys made some nice catches.”
on UCLA’s Joshua Kelley
“We missed some gaps. This is different because we had 80 plays last year, and they had 80 this year. It’s an almost complete reversal. We ran the ball for 280 yards, it’s a complete reversal. We ran the ball at times but we got so far behind that we had to throw it.”
on defensive miscues on third and fourth downs
“There were fouls. One the guy caught and we thought he was out of bounds but he was in bounds on third and 14. We got to clean that up. We had six penalties in the first half, three in the second half, and that’s too many. We usually average five a game, and if we can average that you’re playing pretty good, but we didn’t do that.”
on the mental effects of close calls
“Not only do we have a young team, but the coaches are too. I’m not one of them, I don’t let that bother me, I don’t get involved in officiating. I just don’t. It’s part of the game. When it goes your way, you don’t say anything. At the end, I think it works out with the football gods. It just does. I’ve been in enough games that I look at it that way. They’ve got a hard job, and they’re under scrutiny all the time. Officials never have a home game no matter where they’re at. They’re always on the road and with how many handkerchiefs they throw out – someone’s gonna be sad. They have a hard job, I respect those guys.”
UCLA running back Joshua Kelley
on his offensive line
“I could talk all day about the offensive line. They’re amazing. Those guys are awesome for us, as a team. They played amazing tonight. They knew that they had a big challenge tonight, going up against a great defense. They were flat-out amazing. We can’t do what we did without that offensive line. They were spectacular. They deserve all the credit.”
on scoring a career-high four touchdowns
“You know, I like playing at the Rose Bowl. We needed a win here, for sure. We haven’t had a win at home this season. So that was an extra incentive for us. But our offensive line was so amazing. I can’t do that without them. Dorian was making plays. Kyle was making plays.”
on his thoughts on momentum in the game of football and stringing together wins
“Oh yeah, it feels great to win. As far as to win football games, as you guys know, the Pac-12 has probably the most parity in all of the conferences in college football. You never know who is going to win each Saturday. But for us to get back-to-back wins, that’s big for us, especially for our young guys. Things are starting to come together, so we’ve just got to stick to it.”
on how much of a lift the defense provided in the game tonight
“Our defense, they were amazing from the start. I feel like in every single game that we play, we open up with our defense on the field. They step up to the challenge. They make sure to create turnovers and get three-and-outs. And, you know, earlier in the season, they were carrying us, too. Our defense has been awesome. Our front seven is amazing. Our DBs are great.”
on seeing Kazmeir Allen and Martell Irby get in the game
“I get excited when you guys mention them. They’re the future. They are amazing and they are going to be the guys. It’s awesome to see them get a chance to play. We miss Kaz, we miss Martell, and we got Felt [Demetric Felton] too, so we’ve got so many guys. It’s awesome, because I see those guys everyday. I saw those guys when they first got here, and to see their growth and maturity, it kind of makes me get emotional. Those guys deserve it. They’re going to be superstars, for sure.”
on where this win ranks among his UCLA memories and achievements
“It’s just good to get the win, you know. I think that individual success, that’s fine and all, but the things that you’re going to remember forever are the winning moments and just sharing those moments in the locker room with the guys. That’s what you play for. It’s just so amazing to be there in that moment. It’s nice to score touchdowns, but sharing the moment with your guys, you can’t score without your offensive line.”
UCLA wide receiver Ethan Fernea
on getting his first catches of the year
“Pretty surreal feeling. I’ve been dreaming about making catches in the Rose Bowl for a really long time now. So yeah, I’m just happy that I could make a few plays when I got called upon.”
on the fourth-down play that he converted
“Fourth and short, I saw man coverage so I thought there was a chance it might come to me. Great job by Dorian [Thompson-Robinson] getting the ball out quick, because they brought a lot of pressure. It was pretty nerve-wracking getting out there for my first catch, big fourth down, but I’m glad I could make a play.”