Postgame Quotes - UCLA vs. Arizona
POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 27, Arizona 10
Pasadena, Calif. (Rose Bowl)
Nov. 28, 2020
UCLA head coach Chip Kelly
on Demetric Felton’s performance, rushing for 206 yards against Arizona
“I was really happy for Felt. He’s worked extremely hard since he moved to running back and has really turned himself into a quality back. He’s got great vision. I thought our o-line did a really nice job. The unsung group that I don’t think gets enough credit is how well our receivers block and tight ends block. It was a team effort. For any back, to have 200 yards is a huge day. We are really happy for Felt.
on if he was injured and his status going forward
“I don’t know any of that.”
on his thoughts about quarterback Chase Griffin’s performance
“I thought he did a really nice job. I thought he protected the football. That was the number one thing that we had talked about, going into this game. If we could either finish even or plus in the turnover category, we’ve got a really good shot of winning. We preached that all week long, from a ball security standpoint. I thought that Chase did a great job distributing the football when we asked him to. He also picked up a couple of nifty ones with his ability to scramble. I was really happy.”
on team’s defensive improvement
“Jerry [Azzinaro] is our defensive coordinator. Jerry calls everything. So, you know, it’s a combination of Jason [Kaufusi], Jerry, Johnny Nansen, Don Pellum, and Brian [Norwood], all together. And the thing that we talked about in the offseason was getting our best athletes on the field. We thought we had some really good athletes at all three levels. And that’s what we are trying to do. Jerry runs our defense. Jerry calls our defense.”
on quarterback Chase Griffin’s demeanor
“His mindset is great. He’s one of the most driven young guys I’ve been around. He wants to be successful in everything that he does, and really, truly, sometimes people talk about that. But whether it’s on the field or off the field, in the classroom, in the meeting room, in the library, in the weight room, you know, that’s just kind of his mindset. There is a calmness to him. He doesn’t get rattled which is awesome. He really can stay neutral. He doesn’t get too high or too low. I think our players thrived off that today.”
on scoring 20 points in the first half and no points in the third quarter
“I thought that [Arizona defensive coordinator] Paul Rhoads made some really good adjustments at halftime. They did a couple of things. And then we had to counter their counter. I would give Arizona credit. I thought Paul did a really nice job at kind of figuring out what we were doing schematically in the first half. He threw a couple of different looks at us. We had to counter his counter. And then come back in the fourth. But we expected that coming in. Paul is a hell of a football coach. We’ve had really close games with Arizona in my three years here. I think we won by one, two years ago here, and lost a heartbreaker down there, a really close game down there. We knew we were in for a battle. We knew that Arizona is a really well-coached team. We’ve got a ton of respect for Paul. Paul is one of the sharpest guys with who I have ever had the opportunity to coach with. We expected that he was going to make some adjustments. And then we had to figure out what his adjustments were, and then we had to counter his counter.”
on UCLA not turning the ball over
“No question. And that is what we talked about. When we can be clean – and we reiterated it again at halftime – and I challenged our defense to see if they could come up with them and they came up with two. [Stephan] Blaylock came up with a pick there and then [Elijah Gates] Gatesy to seal it. You have a pretty good shot at winning when you’re plus-two in the game. It starts with us being clean on the offensive side of the ball first. Our guys did a really good job, and I thought that was a key part of this game.”
on UCLA’s secondary impact in this game and the impact of Obi Eboh
“Again, I think that we met some key acquisitions in the grad world with Brit [Brown] and Obi [Eboh], Paul Grattan, and Q-Knight [Qwuantrezz Knight]. Those guys have just been awesome. And to see Obi in there, I think he had two sacks from the corner. It was huge. They have shown great leadership since they have been here. All four of them are really, really competitive. They up our practice tempo. They up our practice intensity. What you guys got a chance to see today is what we have seen from them in training sessions. It was really good to see, a great spark for our defense. We are really pleased with them.”
on whether or not Arizona’s game plan changed when Will Plummer took over for Grant Gunnell
“I don’t think it did because I think that the way they used Plummer was the same way they’d used Grant. They weren’t afraid to put him in there and put him in the mix. I don’t know their final numbers. But he still threw it 35 times and he had 12 carries. It didn’t change. We know Will. We recruited Will. We had seen him in person a couple of times in Arizona. His brother is actually ripping it up at Purdue right now. It’s a good family, and he’s a good football player. But I don’t think their offense changed that much. That’s a good question for Kevin [Sumlin].”
on giving a hug to Elijah Gates after the game and how Elijah has performed
“I think you guys get caught up a little bit too much in the depth chart because he plays a ton in our dime package. He has played a lot of football for us, and he’s been awesome. I’m a huge Elijah fan. He’s doing a lot of different things. He may not be the starting safety in base, but we are not in base all that often. We’re in dime a lot. He plays a lot for us in dime. He has worked extremely hard and when you see someone who has worked as hard as he’s worked, to have success like that, and to finish a game off that way was awesome. I’m just really proud of Gatesy. He gives us everything he has got. It was good that he came out on the right side of it today.”
UCLA quarterback Chase Griffin
on preparing for his second start
“Essentially I’d just say it’s a blessing. There’s no other way to put it. The offense really played well and made it easy for me just to go through my reads and manage the offense and protect the ball (inaudible). In the other phases of the game, the special teams and defense played lights out (inaudible).”
on keeping the game ball and his first win as a starter
“We’ll see if I’m able to still keep the ball or not. I have it, but hopefully, I can keep it. Like I said earlier, it’s really just a blessing, I’m so proud of the way the team fought, and sometimes a win is a win and the rest of the team played great. I just had to go in and protect the ball.”
on what it is like as a quarterback to have running backs Brittain Brown and Demetric Felton to take the pressure off
“It’s pretty awesome. As a quarterback, I’ll play in any situation, but to have two backs who are really ready to go, and an o-line and tight ends up front who are ready to block, and receivers on the outside who are ready to make plays, it makes it a whole lot easier. So I go into games confident both in myself and in the offense. I think it showed tonight. There were times when we were really hitting our stride and the defense and special teams played lights out.”
UCLA defensive back Obi Eboh
on his contribution to the defense and the unit’s role in the win
“Yeah, it was incredible. I’ve got to give it up to my guys. My defensive linemen, secondary, linebackers, everybody. I think it’s a selfless defense and I do better because my teammates are running hard to the ball. They’re running stunts underneath. Shea Pitts is taking the tackle upfield so that I can come underneath. Everybody’s working together as a cohesive unit to accomplish one goal and I think that’s what we did tonight.”
on what allowed him to cause disruption in the backfield during this game
“I’ve got to give credit to our game plan. Coach ‘Az’ (Defensive Coordinator Jerry Azzarino) and (Defensive Backs) Coach (Brian) Norwood had a good plan for us. This defense has been really aggressive and we’re getting to the quarterback as y’all have seen the past few games, so I’ve got to give credit to the coaches for developing a sound game plan and to the rest of our defense for executing it.”
on how the secondary has improved
“From what I’ve heard with what they had going on last year, Coach Norwood came in and is really harping on ball skills and throwing the ball at practice. So whenever we’re at practice, most everything we do there’s a ball involved and we’re taking it away. We’re always practicing creating turnovers whether it’s interceptions, strips, recovering fumbles, whatever we can do. We’re doing those things fundamentally so that when we get into the game it kind of becomes second-nature and I think we’ve done a good job of that, obviously tonight with two interceptions and the fourth-down stops and all those kinds of things.”
UCLA running back Brittain Brown
on the one-two punch between him and running back Demetric Felton in the running game
“It’s a lot of fun being a one-two punch because you know you just have a teammate that can help you out if you’re down a little bit, or if you’re up, then the other person can pick you up, so just having Felt (Demetric Felton) out there you saw what he can do in the running game and you can see what I can do in the running game. It’s just good to have a one-two punch with that o-line doing that work and creating the holes for us, and it’s just turned out to be a really good thing for our offense.”
on what has impressed him the most about quarterback Chase Griffin during his first two starts
“We knew he was going to do his thing in this game because he’s just always calm, he’s always on his P’s and Q’s, he knows what he’s doing, he comes prepared. We call him ‘The President’ because he knows how to lead this group. I know we’re down and out about Dorian (Thompson-Robinson) not being here, but having Chase Griffin is not a minus at all.”
on Felton limping off the field and his outlook going forward
“I’m not sure. I’m pretty sure he’s fine. It didn’t look like anything too serious, but he’s going to be ready for next week, most definitely. Just being cautious about things.”
Arizona head coach Kevin Sumlin
on Grant Gunnell’s injury on the first play of the game and putting in a backup quarterback
"(Will Plummer) had earned that right to be the backup during practice since we started in the fall. So it obviously had an effect, but how he had practiced and you could see some things. He did move the football when he first came into the game. There’s always an effect on the game when a guy hasn’t played."
on detrimental moments that stand out
"I think one of the big moments was that we went for it on fourth down and didn’t get it in the first half, which was a big swing because they scored. But then we came back in the second half and our defense got some stops. We had some long fields, but we made some yardage. Even in the last play, the field goal, we dropped the snap and it makes it a one-score game at 20-13. So there are a lot of pivotal moments. But right now at the top of my head, those two were really big."
on Will Plummer’s run game and utilizing more of it
"I think (UCLA’s) defense had a lot to do with that. They were pressuring from a lot of off the edge pressure, corner blitzes, internal pressure. Obviously, his mobility helps him in those situations to escape and he utilized that. So that’s something we’ll look at."
on psychological effects of the missed field goal in the final quarter
"As I said, it was another big play in the game because you make the field goal, it’s a one-score game with time left to tie or win the game. So psychologically, that’s difficult, but in the game, you’ve got to fight through that. It was a pivotal point in the game."
on overall message to the team after a third loss in a row
"I mean everybody in the locker room is frustrated. But the overall message is that you’ve got to come back and you’ve got to go to work and you’ve got to believe in and trust in yourself and trust in each other. And the only way to climb out of this thing is to get to work and keep working. There are some things tonight, specifically defensively, that at times did some good things. But we have to find some consistency and continue to work and believe and trust each other and trust ourselves. That belief – you can’t waiver there. And so your work ethic that starts on Monday has got to continue. That’s the only way you can climb out of something like this."
Arizona wide receiver Jamarye Joiner
on how a change in quarterbacks changed mindset on the field
“It didn’t really change it much. Grant is a challenging quarterback as is Will. Will is a little more mobile than Grant, so just knowing that he can extend plays more with his legs. We’ve just got to help him out as a young quarterback and get comfortable with the game.”
on good things and bad things for the drives that resulted in field goals
“Our offensive tempo worked well. They couldn’t keep up with us and they were huffing and puffing on the field, so just running down the field and throwing for quick passes, but we just couldn’t put it in at the end of those drives.”
on the most disappointing part about the team’s losing streak and what’s not working
“Just that we’re working so hard. We work hard every week. Day in and day out we put in the extra time, watch film, just working hard as a team, but not getting the results we want. We just have to finish out drives. We march the ball down the field. We make big plays. We have to capitalize when the defense makes big stops because the defense is doing a really good job of making stops, holding teams to a field goal or a punt, so we just have to capitalize on our strengths.”
on the rally in the second half
“We’re always antsy. We’re always on our feet. We’re never really down on ourselves. We’re always ready for the big play to happen. We’re never just sitting back and being complacent, so we thought that we would make that big play happen and score and put some points on the board.”
Arizona linebacker Anthony Pandy
on the most disappointing part about the team’s losing streak and what’s not working
“Just us putting in the work. The work we’re putting in is good work. Monday through Friday we are working to get us wins and end the streak but we’re just not getting results.”
on adjustments made in the second half
“Yeah, we shut them down until that last drive. Going into halftime we realized our problem of why we were down – we were missing tackles. So we emphasized that, made our adjustments. (Defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads) made the adjustments that we needed. He’s a great DC. And we came out and played hard.”
on dropped snap and how it deflated the team
“As a defense, we have to have pride in ourselves. We don’t want to let them score regardless of if we’re winning or losing. So as a defense we want to keep that ball and keep them from scoring so that we can get it back to our offense.”
on defending UCLA’s run game
“We knew what we were getting into. We knew who their running backs were. We knew who was going to play. We know their formations. We prepared well for this game, but it was just more of a defensive thing where we were missing tackles. We came out in the second half and we shut them down the whole second half until the last couple drives.”