Postgame Quotes – UCLA vs. Oklahoma
POSTGAME QUOTES
Oklahoma 48, UCLA 14
September 14, 2019
UCLA head coach Chip Kelly
on UCLA having scored 14 points on offense in each of three games
“I think that it’s a consistency thing. You know, I think that there are times where we’ve put together some pretty good drives, where we’ve gone up and down the field. But we are just too inconsistent as a group to sustain, and that is what we’ve got to work on.”
on being down by 27 points and attempting a field goal in the red zone
“It was fourth-and-8, and if you don’t think that you’re going to convert on fourth-and-8, you just get some points and see what happen.”
on why the coaching staff chose not to play a different quarterback at the end of the game
“Because we felt confident in Dorian.”
on possibly taking any silver lining from Saturday’s game
“I think you look at the film. Our guys battled back in the second half, being down what we were at halftime. We came out and we put together a good 15-play drive. We ended up scoring. I think that there are some positives that you can build upon. But again, it comes down to what I had said in that first question with the consistency thing. There were times that we knew that we could move the football, but you’ve got to do that more consistently, especially when you are playing against an offense like that. It’s tough to keep up with what they can do on the offensive side of the ball. And we’ve got to do a better job on the offensive side of the ball as well.”
on going up against Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts
“I think that he’s a special player. He’s as good as I’ve ever had the opportunity to coach against. I’d put Jalen Hurts and Kyler Murray, who we’d played against last year, and Andrew Luck as the three quarterbacks who I’ve coached against. He has an answer with his feet, and he’s got an answer with his arm. What we saw tonight is that he’s a very special player. I’m sure he’ll continue to do that for the rest of the year.”
on how personally difficult these first three games have been for him
“Any time you lose is difficult. I don’t look at it as it being my cross, but it’s everybody’s cross. You see those guys who are working very hard, and they come out on the losing end of the score. That’s disappointment and that’s, you know, nobody is going to feel sorry for us and we don’t feel sorry for ourselves and we don’t make excuses and we don’t let anybody make excuses for us. So, we have to grow and get better as a team. There are some things that we’ve got to clean up. We had a huge sack on a third [down] and turned it into a fourth and 40, but we’re offsides. As a team that is fighting and that is as good as Oklahoma, we can’t do that. We didn’t have many big plays on defense, but when we had them, we shot ourselves in the foot because we’re offsides. We are trying to get back in time and we didn’t, and then they score on that drive. So maybe it’s a little different ballgame there. It was 34-14, we forced them to punt, and what can we do in those situations? Good teams don’t do that. We need to strive to understand that players like Jalen [Hurts] are going to make plays against you. But we cannot give them plays. And we gave them on that, and they capitalized on a few plays later.”
on UCLA running back Joshua Kelley and whether he’s at 100 percent
“I would not put a percentage on him. Obviously, he missed some time, and he did some good things today. We need to continue to build upon Josh.”
on his message to UCLA fans with the team starting 0-3
“Obviously, we are a young football team. We knew that going into the season, what we’re playing with. I thought we fought and battled in the second half here against a really good team. I think that’s a team that you’ll see, probably at the end of the year, in contention. I think they’ve got a lot of weapons. As good a player as Jalen is, there are some other guys around him who are really good, too. That’s a really good football team we played against today. I think that our guys fought and competed in the second half, and that is something that we have to build upon as we go into league play, now.”
on the mental state of his team
“I think we talk about it a lot. I know those guys in that locker room love each other, and our coaching staff loves those players, too. They understand that. I think that it is times like this when you are facing adversity that you’ve got to stick together, as a group. You can’t fray as a group, because then it just gets worse. I am confident that they’ll stick together. I can tell what they’re like. This is all a new experience for them. We have played a difficult schedule, and we knew that going in and we don’t make that as an excuse. We’ve now got an opportunity to learn and grow. We get ready to go up against Washington State, and they won on Friday night, and we’ve got a chance to go play Mike and his group. That will be a challenge for us. We’ve got to get back to work on Monday. That is what our message was in the locker room.”
Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley
opening remarks
“We accomplished a lot of things that we wanted to here, tonight – our first road win, having an opportunity to go undefeated in our non-conference [schedule] again, that is always a big goal of ours. Different teams in different venues present different challenges, and I thought we grew some here this week. Our mentality, playing all three sides of the ball, we’ve continued to get better. Going into this bye week there are still a ton of things that we have to get better at and learn from tonight. You feel like this team is feeding off each other, and that is such a difficult thing to simulate as you go through spring and camp, and then all of a sudden you are playing on the same team and there is a feel and a flow of the game. You build off each other’s momentum, and you could feel that on the sideline tonight. We’ve got a lot of work to do with a bye week before we jump into Big 12 play and also, I’d be wrong if I didn’t say anything about it. But with our fans, wow. How many fans came out here to California to watch us play? It meant a lot to our team and our guys noticed it. They helped to create a really nice atmosphere for us. It was loud, which is something to say when you’re that far from home. It’s an example of how we are different. Our staff and players really appreciate it.”
on Jalen Hurts and what he saw from his quarterback
“He played pretty good. He made the majority of plays that he was supposed to make and then a few where he made a couple off script that were important plays. I mean, he threw the ball well. He took some steps from the last couple of weeks. It’s a laundry list of things to get better at, and that is how I will approach it with him.”
on how well Oklahoma has played in the first quarter
“We’ve come out strong in a few of them. We played good team football early in games. We’ve gotten stops, defensively. We are playing good team football. It has been steps, steps in the right direction. We did some good things, but we are still so far away from where we could be.”
on his team’s offensive line
“I thought they played well. I thought they responded. They got challenged this week. I thought they were aggressive. And UCLA is going to be fine. They are a big, physical front. So, to do some of the things we did in the run game against them was pretty good. We had a couple of penalties, but nothing concerning to me. We did have a couple of penalties, but we took some steps. Some of our young guys did some nice things, as well.”
on how Oklahoma’s opening drive helped to set the tone, especially with Jalen Hurts
“In that first drive, he [Jalen] got loose on a couple of scrambles and that’s the thing. We have got some good widouts and some playmakers who and make some plays right now. And, he is as threat to run. He’s a good athlete. That’s why you recruit good athletes.”
on Grant Calcaterra and Lee Morris being open across the middle
“It just played out that way. Those are good players for us. They’d had a ton of opportunities the first couple of games. That is just kind of the way that it’s worked out. They did a good job with seeing the field.”
on his general thoughts about UCLA’s team
“I don’t ever get my mind into how teams are going to play out. When you are playing, one a talented team, and two, a team with the quality of coaches and how well-coached they are, we were ready for anything. We got off to such a good start. Then they got a little momentum back there when they scored. And then we kind of delivered a few haymakers there at the end of the first half. We had the ball in on the goal line. It was kind of the same thing with them at the start of the second half. They scored and stopped us. And got the ball back, and we were able to end their momentum. That’s a great looking team. We knew that it was going to be a battle.”
on if he was surprised with the turnout of Oklahoma fans
“We always travel great. And it is not something we take for granted. We know that it’s not always easy for fans. We do have a lot of fans who traveled, and to see all those who came out and supported us, and yeah, when you are half a country away.”
UCLA quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson
on facing Jalen Hurts
“He definitely is a hell of a player, as you can see by his performance tonight, he showed that. I knew coming into the game I had to match his intensity and his play. So, yeah, he brought my game up.”
on the team’s inconsistency on offense
“Yeah, I guess at the end of the day we have to try to continue to execute. Build on good drives and good plays and stuff like that kind of stacks stuff. Consistency wasn’t there tonight.”
on what worked well for his team in the third quarter
“I think we can see a rhythm, and that is the biggest thing that we finally got into a rhythm. Just started stacking plays with building one on top of another, while finding consistency on those drives.”
on building toward next Saturday’s road game at Washington State
“The first three weeks being against three tough opponents, and they all gave us a really good test and really good looks. I think that will prepare us to go into next week against a really good Washington State team.”
on whether or not the number of Oklahoma fans affected UCLA’s team
“We don’t really pay attention to that. We just try to go out there and execute the plays and stick to what our job is.”
on how he and his teammates react to not necessarily getting the results they’d like
“I think just putting your attention to your teammates. I think that is really the only thing you can do. You can’t look at outside sources, you have to look from within and come together as a group.”
on his ability to run for more yards against Oklahoma
“I think just giving what the defense gives me. Going through my reads, Coach Kelly preached if nothing is there to know that I’m a runner too. Just to try to get a couple yards here and there is very beneficial for play calling so taking what the defense gives me.”
UCLA running back Demetric Felton
on how he and his teammates are feeling after the game
“I mean we’re definitely not happy with the outcome but you know it’s going to sting tonight but we’re going to come back ready Monday ready to work.”
on the team having a players only meeting last week and if that helped
“Definitely. I feel like we all played really hard for each other, and that’s what it comes down to. But we have to execute and that’s how you win games.”
UCLA defensive lineman Atonio Mafi
on how he and his teammates are feeling after the game
“Same thing, you know. We have to fix our mistakes. There’s a lot of little things that we did out there like get a sack on third down when we were offsides. So there’s a lot of good flashes of what we can do so we have to fix the little things to get back on track.”
on if he and his teammates were surprised by Oklahoma’s efficiency
“Number one is a really good ball player. He might be one of the best ball players we play all year. The way he played was really a testament to the player he is. So, we prepared the best we could, we had a really good week of practice and number one is just a great player.”
on making improvements at halftime and trying to limit Oklahoma’s offense
“You know, there’s a lot of things they can see in the first half that was on us not really on what they were doing but missed assignments, not flowing to the ball and missed tackles and what not. And a lot of their big plays, those were based off what we were doing and, you know, we tried to come out in the second half. You know, we stopped them on the first drive but we have to be more consistent. We can’t have these really good stops and then just let them run freely down the field. We have to be more consistent on defense.”
on defending a talented quarterback such as Jalen Hurts
“When we face a quarterback like him who can run, you can pass, you’ve got to box him in. He is good at running that ball but also we’re not just playing the running game. We got the read option going on, so we just had to focus on the game this week, and we definitely could have done a better job. We need to play better.”
Oklahoma 48, UCLA 14
September 14, 2019
UCLA head coach Chip Kelly
on UCLA having scored 14 points on offense in each of three games
“I think that it’s a consistency thing. You know, I think that there are times where we’ve put together some pretty good drives, where we’ve gone up and down the field. But we are just too inconsistent as a group to sustain, and that is what we’ve got to work on.”
on being down by 27 points and attempting a field goal in the red zone
“It was fourth-and-8, and if you don’t think that you’re going to convert on fourth-and-8, you just get some points and see what happen.”
on why the coaching staff chose not to play a different quarterback at the end of the game
“Because we felt confident in Dorian.”
on possibly taking any silver lining from Saturday’s game
“I think you look at the film. Our guys battled back in the second half, being down what we were at halftime. We came out and we put together a good 15-play drive. We ended up scoring. I think that there are some positives that you can build upon. But again, it comes down to what I had said in that first question with the consistency thing. There were times that we knew that we could move the football, but you’ve got to do that more consistently, especially when you are playing against an offense like that. It’s tough to keep up with what they can do on the offensive side of the ball. And we’ve got to do a better job on the offensive side of the ball as well.”
on going up against Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts
“I think that he’s a special player. He’s as good as I’ve ever had the opportunity to coach against. I’d put Jalen Hurts and Kyler Murray, who we’d played against last year, and Andrew Luck as the three quarterbacks who I’ve coached against. He has an answer with his feet, and he’s got an answer with his arm. What we saw tonight is that he’s a very special player. I’m sure he’ll continue to do that for the rest of the year.”
on how personally difficult these first three games have been for him
“Any time you lose is difficult. I don’t look at it as it being my cross, but it’s everybody’s cross. You see those guys who are working very hard, and they come out on the losing end of the score. That’s disappointment and that’s, you know, nobody is going to feel sorry for us and we don’t feel sorry for ourselves and we don’t make excuses and we don’t let anybody make excuses for us. So, we have to grow and get better as a team. There are some things that we’ve got to clean up. We had a huge sack on a third [down] and turned it into a fourth and 40, but we’re offsides. As a team that is fighting and that is as good as Oklahoma, we can’t do that. We didn’t have many big plays on defense, but when we had them, we shot ourselves in the foot because we’re offsides. We are trying to get back in time and we didn’t, and then they score on that drive. So maybe it’s a little different ballgame there. It was 34-14, we forced them to punt, and what can we do in those situations? Good teams don’t do that. We need to strive to understand that players like Jalen [Hurts] are going to make plays against you. But we cannot give them plays. And we gave them on that, and they capitalized on a few plays later.”
on UCLA running back Joshua Kelley and whether he’s at 100 percent
“I would not put a percentage on him. Obviously, he missed some time, and he did some good things today. We need to continue to build upon Josh.”
on his message to UCLA fans with the team starting 0-3
“Obviously, we are a young football team. We knew that going into the season, what we’re playing with. I thought we fought and battled in the second half here against a really good team. I think that’s a team that you’ll see, probably at the end of the year, in contention. I think they’ve got a lot of weapons. As good a player as Jalen is, there are some other guys around him who are really good, too. That’s a really good football team we played against today. I think that our guys fought and competed in the second half, and that is something that we have to build upon as we go into league play, now.”
on the mental state of his team
“I think we talk about it a lot. I know those guys in that locker room love each other, and our coaching staff loves those players, too. They understand that. I think that it is times like this when you are facing adversity that you’ve got to stick together, as a group. You can’t fray as a group, because then it just gets worse. I am confident that they’ll stick together. I can tell what they’re like. This is all a new experience for them. We have played a difficult schedule, and we knew that going in and we don’t make that as an excuse. We’ve now got an opportunity to learn and grow. We get ready to go up against Washington State, and they won on Friday night, and we’ve got a chance to go play Mike and his group. That will be a challenge for us. We’ve got to get back to work on Monday. That is what our message was in the locker room.”
Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley
opening remarks
“We accomplished a lot of things that we wanted to here, tonight – our first road win, having an opportunity to go undefeated in our non-conference [schedule] again, that is always a big goal of ours. Different teams in different venues present different challenges, and I thought we grew some here this week. Our mentality, playing all three sides of the ball, we’ve continued to get better. Going into this bye week there are still a ton of things that we have to get better at and learn from tonight. You feel like this team is feeding off each other, and that is such a difficult thing to simulate as you go through spring and camp, and then all of a sudden you are playing on the same team and there is a feel and a flow of the game. You build off each other’s momentum, and you could feel that on the sideline tonight. We’ve got a lot of work to do with a bye week before we jump into Big 12 play and also, I’d be wrong if I didn’t say anything about it. But with our fans, wow. How many fans came out here to California to watch us play? It meant a lot to our team and our guys noticed it. They helped to create a really nice atmosphere for us. It was loud, which is something to say when you’re that far from home. It’s an example of how we are different. Our staff and players really appreciate it.”
on Jalen Hurts and what he saw from his quarterback
“He played pretty good. He made the majority of plays that he was supposed to make and then a few where he made a couple off script that were important plays. I mean, he threw the ball well. He took some steps from the last couple of weeks. It’s a laundry list of things to get better at, and that is how I will approach it with him.”
on how well Oklahoma has played in the first quarter
“We’ve come out strong in a few of them. We played good team football early in games. We’ve gotten stops, defensively. We are playing good team football. It has been steps, steps in the right direction. We did some good things, but we are still so far away from where we could be.”
on his team’s offensive line
“I thought they played well. I thought they responded. They got challenged this week. I thought they were aggressive. And UCLA is going to be fine. They are a big, physical front. So, to do some of the things we did in the run game against them was pretty good. We had a couple of penalties, but nothing concerning to me. We did have a couple of penalties, but we took some steps. Some of our young guys did some nice things, as well.”
on how Oklahoma’s opening drive helped to set the tone, especially with Jalen Hurts
“In that first drive, he [Jalen] got loose on a couple of scrambles and that’s the thing. We have got some good widouts and some playmakers who and make some plays right now. And, he is as threat to run. He’s a good athlete. That’s why you recruit good athletes.”
on Grant Calcaterra and Lee Morris being open across the middle
“It just played out that way. Those are good players for us. They’d had a ton of opportunities the first couple of games. That is just kind of the way that it’s worked out. They did a good job with seeing the field.”
on his general thoughts about UCLA’s team
“I don’t ever get my mind into how teams are going to play out. When you are playing, one a talented team, and two, a team with the quality of coaches and how well-coached they are, we were ready for anything. We got off to such a good start. Then they got a little momentum back there when they scored. And then we kind of delivered a few haymakers there at the end of the first half. We had the ball in on the goal line. It was kind of the same thing with them at the start of the second half. They scored and stopped us. And got the ball back, and we were able to end their momentum. That’s a great looking team. We knew that it was going to be a battle.”
on if he was surprised with the turnout of Oklahoma fans
“We always travel great. And it is not something we take for granted. We know that it’s not always easy for fans. We do have a lot of fans who traveled, and to see all those who came out and supported us, and yeah, when you are half a country away.”
UCLA quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson
on facing Jalen Hurts
“He definitely is a hell of a player, as you can see by his performance tonight, he showed that. I knew coming into the game I had to match his intensity and his play. So, yeah, he brought my game up.”
on the team’s inconsistency on offense
“Yeah, I guess at the end of the day we have to try to continue to execute. Build on good drives and good plays and stuff like that kind of stacks stuff. Consistency wasn’t there tonight.”
on what worked well for his team in the third quarter
“I think we can see a rhythm, and that is the biggest thing that we finally got into a rhythm. Just started stacking plays with building one on top of another, while finding consistency on those drives.”
on building toward next Saturday’s road game at Washington State
“The first three weeks being against three tough opponents, and they all gave us a really good test and really good looks. I think that will prepare us to go into next week against a really good Washington State team.”
on whether or not the number of Oklahoma fans affected UCLA’s team
“We don’t really pay attention to that. We just try to go out there and execute the plays and stick to what our job is.”
on how he and his teammates react to not necessarily getting the results they’d like
“I think just putting your attention to your teammates. I think that is really the only thing you can do. You can’t look at outside sources, you have to look from within and come together as a group.”
on his ability to run for more yards against Oklahoma
“I think just giving what the defense gives me. Going through my reads, Coach Kelly preached if nothing is there to know that I’m a runner too. Just to try to get a couple yards here and there is very beneficial for play calling so taking what the defense gives me.”
UCLA running back Demetric Felton
on how he and his teammates are feeling after the game
“I mean we’re definitely not happy with the outcome but you know it’s going to sting tonight but we’re going to come back ready Monday ready to work.”
on the team having a players only meeting last week and if that helped
“Definitely. I feel like we all played really hard for each other, and that’s what it comes down to. But we have to execute and that’s how you win games.”
UCLA defensive lineman Atonio Mafi
on how he and his teammates are feeling after the game
“Same thing, you know. We have to fix our mistakes. There’s a lot of little things that we did out there like get a sack on third down when we were offsides. So there’s a lot of good flashes of what we can do so we have to fix the little things to get back on track.”
on if he and his teammates were surprised by Oklahoma’s efficiency
“Number one is a really good ball player. He might be one of the best ball players we play all year. The way he played was really a testament to the player he is. So, we prepared the best we could, we had a really good week of practice and number one is just a great player.”
on making improvements at halftime and trying to limit Oklahoma’s offense
“You know, there’s a lot of things they can see in the first half that was on us not really on what they were doing but missed assignments, not flowing to the ball and missed tackles and what not. And a lot of their big plays, those were based off what we were doing and, you know, we tried to come out in the second half. You know, we stopped them on the first drive but we have to be more consistent. We can’t have these really good stops and then just let them run freely down the field. We have to be more consistent on defense.”
on defending a talented quarterback such as Jalen Hurts
“When we face a quarterback like him who can run, you can pass, you’ve got to box him in. He is good at running that ball but also we’re not just playing the running game. We got the read option going on, so we just had to focus on the game this week, and we definitely could have done a better job. We need to play better.”