Postgame Quotes – UCLA vs. Hawaii
POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 44, Hawaii 10
Pasadena, Calif. (Rose Bowl)
August 28, 2021
UCLA head coach Chip Kelly
on his overall impressions of the Bruins’ defense
“I thought that our entire team played with really good energy today, but our defense really set the tone nicely. We deferred and kicked off and for them to do what they did, where the punter ends up with the ball down on the 10, a lot of really good things happened and I think that we’ve got some kids in one-on-one matchups, Bo Calvert at outside linebacker and made some plays and Mitchell Agude was flying around in there. We had a decent rotation. It was obviously a really hot day so we had to play a lot of guys, but for the first one out of the gates, there is a lot to teach and a lot of good things that we can show them off the film.”
on wearing a white visor during the game and why he wore it
“The company that makes them. So, I have always been partial to visors that that company makes. It was good that I got to wear it.”
on securing a win in UCLA’s season opener
“We’re just excited as a team. I thought our kids played with great energy. They have been champing at the bit since our season ended last year. You know, we only played seven games. I thought that they had a great offseason. They worked extremely hard. You really don’t know what you are going to get – there is an idea with what you think you can do in all three phases of the game. But until you actually play another opponent, you’re not sure. I think there are some positive things that we can build on today, but there are a lot of things that we’ve got to clean up. You feel fortunate that we came out of it relatively healthy, but we have a very formidable opponent coming in here next Saturday so we’ll get right back to work pretty quickly.”
on UCLA’s running combination with Brittain Brown and Zach Charbonnet
“It’s comforting to know. There is not much of a transition between either of those guys. At times, we’d really relied on Josh [Kelley] a lot. And then it was awesome that we could get [Demetric] Felton in from wide receiver and he started to pick it up. He was a different type of weapon. He’s being used in the NFL right now in the slot and as a running back, but to really not have to change very much because Brittain and Zach are very similar in terms of body types and the types of runs that they can do. But I thought that both of those guys did a good job in the passing game today. They are three-down backs. When you play the schedule that we play, where you need to have multiple running backs, I was very happy with how those guys played today.”
on quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson
“I think that every game expresses itself differently, in terms of what you’re able to do and not able to do. I think at times we saw a lot of two-high safety which allowed us to run the ball. They came out in the second half, tried to play some press man, and Kaz [Allen] got a chance to shake it deep a little bit and Dorian put it on him. He missed a couple of throws today, but he also had a couple of drops. You know, catch-catch and then all of a sudden, may be it is a different story. But I think that our entire team’s ability to bounce back after plays and not that play affect the next play was pretty cool to see. There is a lot of film, like I said, that we can look at and we can built upon that.”
on having a team that can be disruptive on defense and special teams
“Yeah, I mean two separate units but I thought our punt return team did a decent job, based upon what they were giving us from a protection standpoint. Again, I thought our front played really well today. And it was good to see, those guys have worked extremely hard. I thought that we’d be decent up there, and it showed today.”
on the 47-yard touchdown carry by Zach Charbonnet late in the first quarter
“Yeah, he’s relentless when he has the football. He is always running with great forward lean and it makes him very difficult to tackle. He’s 220 pounds. He has legit speed. We have seen it since he was in high school. He’s the same guy that we saw. We were just really happy when we were fortunate to get him, last spring. We saw through the spring and preseason camp, it’s kind of what you guys had the opportunity to see today.”
on Hawaii coach Todd Graham using run blitzes
“You never know. There are two things that happen when you blitz – the band plays, is it our band or their band? There were some gaps in there. I thought our offensive line did a really good job at deciphering what they trying to bring against us. So a lot of credit goes to those guys. They opened up some holes. Because of how Todd does it, there is going to be one guy who the back has to make miss and we were fortunate that both Brittain and Zach did that.”
on Bruin fans jumping upon the bandwagon
“You can write whatever you want. I’ve been very adamant that I can never tell you what to write. This team is a special team because of the people that are there. Now, that doesn’t mean that you can be a special team and get your tail kicked on weekends, too. But, the players that we have right now are really special, and that doesn’t get enough credit. We have 16 kids in grad school. There are 18 graduates on this football team. It is a mature team. I think they’re really disciplined, in terms of what they want to do. We’ve talked about it since we got here, that it is about books and ball. Those guys are eating it up in the classroom, and they are starting to see the dividends on the football field. They’re great people and I think they’re great representatives for this university.”
on the balance between running the ball and throwing the ball
“A lot of it depends on what the defense is doing to you. There were a lot of things in the first half – where you don’t always have to throw it. We were running it, getting 10 yards in a clip, and maybe you have a bad play call. You don’t get points at the end of the game for having a balanced system. We are equal opportunity people. I don’t care if we gain 10 yards on the ground or 10 yards in the air. Sometimes you just see what the hot hand is, and sometimes there is a hot receiver or at times the quarterback is hot or the running back is hot. I think when you discover something that works – our concept has always been we are going to do it until you stop it, and if you take it away, then we have to have a counter for it. That is the chess match that goes on within the game. We don’t sit there as a staff and say, ‘Well we just had three carries for 30 yards, let’s throw it now.’ Run it a fourth time. Let’s see if we can get 10 more yards. So that is our philosophy. We did not think that, ‘Hey, we’ve got to do this, or we’ve got to do that.’ You don’t get points for being balanced. You get points for getting the ball across the goalline. And whether we run it across or throw it to get it across, we really don’t care. There are going to be times where we have to rely on Dorian throwing the heck out of the football. It depends upon your opponent. The Washington State game a couple of years ago was like that, and we threw it almost every down. And there are games like this, where you’ve got to be able to run it. We feel confident that we can do both. But every week, you’ll get tested to see if you can do both.”
on the importance for this team to take advantage of speed
“Kaz is a weapon and I Think that he has found a home. We’ve played him at running back and we have some packages for him. But we didn’t get into any of those today. It was good to see him, he was our kick returner today, but with the ball getting kicked out of the back of the end zone so we didn’t get a chance to return any. He’ll help us in the return game, and obviously he is a weapon in the passing game. I was happy to see him and Dorian get a chance to hook up on that. He’s done both, practicing both in the springtime [running back, receiver]. He’s a really smart kid, so he can handle multiple positions. He’s done individual work at receiver since that part is new to him. He’s another weapon that we can get onto the field.”
junior running back Zach Charbonnet
on his first game as a Bruin
“It was a great experience. I’ve just got to give it all to my o-line. They just put me in great situations when I did have an opportunity. It allowed us to be one-on-one defenders, and that’s all as a running back you can ask for.”
on transferring from Michigan
“I’m just thankful that they let me come in with open arms, and I’m just one of their brothers now.”
on running with Brittain Brown
“I think it’s a great tool, having me be with Brittain. We challenge each other every time we’re in practice and even in the games, we’re challenging each other. I think it’s a great experience for us.”
on how much he’s settled in
“I think the spring was a big thing and the preparation we take as a unit. It’s very prideful and we’re always going to be the most disciplined and the most focused.”
quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson
on the team’s performance
“Obviously, a great team win. The team did great on all phases of the ball: offense, defense, special teams. We took care of the ball on offense and created turnovers on defense, so you can’t ask for more than that.”
on the running game, anchored by backs Zach Charbonnet and Brittain Brown
“If you ask me, I think we have the best running back duo in the country and it was on full display today. I couldn’t be prouder of those guys – all that hard work they put in. As soon Zach stepped on campus, he’s been putting his nose in the playbook and really getting to work. Really happy for those guys.”
on quarterback Ethan Garbers
“I have a great relationship with all the quarterbacks. I try to take care of them like they’re my brothers. Same goes for Ethan. When he’s out there, I’m trying to help him out as much as I can. Coach Kelly kept play-calling to a minimum with, obviously, the [lopsided] score. He did a great job leading the offense down and getting everything rolling.”
on moving into a tie with Troy Aikman for career touchdown passes (41)
“Everything that Troy has done here, I definitely admire and look up to. He is somebody I can always go to. That’s definitely big. I’m just glad we got the win today and we’ll move on to next week.”
junior offensive lineman Jon Gaines II
on blocking for Zach Charbonnet and Brittain Brown
“We have a lot of great running backs in this room. Brittain and Zach especially, we just saw. They run angry, and we love that as an offensive line. To be able to have the opportunity to get them to the second and third level and see what they can do, it’s a great experience for us, and we love to have them here.”
on if they feel more hungry
“One mantra we’ve had on this team in the offseason is we want to be tough, we want to play fast, and we really want to finish. That was something we really lacked last year, and that’s something that we’re going to sustain and hold ourselves to. We’re definitely hungry, and we have to win every single day to be able to perform on Saturdays.”
on the holes the team opened for Zach Charbonnet
“We have pride in it, of course, but that’s an expectation and a standard that we hold ourselves to in the game.”
senior defensive back Qwuantrezz Knight
on the team’s defensive performance on Saturday
“Like Tito [Otito] said, I think we did a pretty good job on defense. Ran to the ball well, which is something we are harping on this year. Left a couple plays out there, but you know this week is a big week. We aren’t going to change what we do we are just going to zone in and come out victorious.”
on opportunities to improve
“I feel like this team can do whatever we want to do. We have a very experienced team, so we just got to get back to the tape and ready for next week.”
senior defensive lineman Otito Ogbonnia
on the Bruins’ defensive performance
“I think we did well. A lot of things to correct, we’ll see that on the film come Sunday and Monday.”
on the Bruins’ overall potential
“We lost all our games last year by 15 points, so having that kind of pain in the back of our minds is what we saw today.”
on starting this season with a better defensive effort, compared to last year
“I think it’s huge, mentally. You never want to start the season with a loss. I think that’s very important to this program. It definitely gives us more hope, more enthusiasm going into future games and understanding what we can do if you put the work in.”
Hawaii head coach Todd Graham
opening remarks
“Obviously, we didn’t play very good. They were obviously a better team than us today. We didn’t play very good in any phase. It was awesome to walk out there and have Colt [Brennan]’s number on our helmet, I’m embarrassed that we played the way we played. It’s just one game, we got beat by a team that was better than us, didn’t coach well, didn’t play offense well, didn’t play defense wall, got a punt blocked. We spent more time on special teams in this camp than any camp I’ve ever been at, and we’ve got to a better job as coaches. It was a disappointing afternoon, just have to go to the next one. We just didn’t play well. Got behind early, you can’t do anything offensively. Their offensive line was good. We had them tackled twice and they broke tackles and went for long runs, that was a big portion of the rushing stuff. Then a lot of it was just four, five yards and they’re pretty good at what they were doing, they were spreading us out to do it. Their backs were good, obviously the quarterback hurt us early. We go through the first series and it’s a 70-yard turnaround on that punt. That was a 50-something-yard punt and then a 14-yard loss on the play because we put our knee on the ground – but he actually had to because it was a bad snap. They were gassed early, they struggled with the heat a little bit, had a lot of guys go down with cramps today, maybe 10 guys. No excuses, we just played poorly.”
on UCLA’s success running the ball
“Nothing they did today was a surprise. They lined up and ran the way we expected them to run. Quarterback didn’t keep it much, we didn’t want him to keep it. We just didn’t tackle very well, we didn’t get off blocks, they just blocked us. We give up one fade, just didn’t get it done on defense, didn’t play well. [We] made two critical errors where we’re totally misaligned. It’s disappointing because it meant a lot to our guys to come here, these are games we look forward to playing and we played poorly, we coached poorly and ultimately I’m responsible for that.”
on his team’s red zone performance
“Not enough plays that can score. We had dropped balls, we had checkdowns we missed, just didn’t execute. You have to give them credit, they were covering us to death.”
on Cameron Lockridge
“I thought one of the bright spots today was [defensive back] Cameron Lockridge. He locked his guy down. He’s matured unbelievably, really proud of him. I was proud of our guys’ attitude, their character, how they responded. There was never any going quiet on the sideline. It was more just upset that we played so poorly. I guess we gave up one pass play, that was about it, the long fade. I thought we had decent coverage on that, just got to get our eyes around and make the play. We scored 10 points and gave up 44, that’s pretty much the story. It’s just disappointing because we’re better than that.”
Hawai’i quarterback Chevan Cordeiro
on the team’s performance
“Just got to learn from this game, I mean they played a good game, UCLA did. We’ve just got to learn from it. We’ve got to look at the film and learn from everything we did wrong. All the things we did good. We’ve got to come back this week stronger with a different mindset.”
on dealing with UCLA’s hot start
“We kept fighting, the O-line, offense, and defense. No matter what the score was we kept fighting until the end. Every 3rd down they would bring cover zero and like I said we just got to learn from it.”
on the heat
“Even yesterday was really hot but we knew it was going to be hot. [We] Tried drinking a lot of water. The reason we played bad wasn’t because of the weather. Just got to go back on the film, look at the playbook, and learn from there.”
on honoring Colt Brennan
“It’s just very disappointing getting the loss period. We tried honoring Colt Brennan and getting a win for him, but everything doesn’t go as planned. It’s just the adversity we’ve got to deal with it we can’t just put our heads down. We’ve got to learn from it and like I said different mindset this week. Looking at the whole season, this should be our only loss.”
UCLA 44, Hawaii 10
Pasadena, Calif. (Rose Bowl)
August 28, 2021
UCLA head coach Chip Kelly
on his overall impressions of the Bruins’ defense
“I thought that our entire team played with really good energy today, but our defense really set the tone nicely. We deferred and kicked off and for them to do what they did, where the punter ends up with the ball down on the 10, a lot of really good things happened and I think that we’ve got some kids in one-on-one matchups, Bo Calvert at outside linebacker and made some plays and Mitchell Agude was flying around in there. We had a decent rotation. It was obviously a really hot day so we had to play a lot of guys, but for the first one out of the gates, there is a lot to teach and a lot of good things that we can show them off the film.”
on wearing a white visor during the game and why he wore it
“The company that makes them. So, I have always been partial to visors that that company makes. It was good that I got to wear it.”
on securing a win in UCLA’s season opener
“We’re just excited as a team. I thought our kids played with great energy. They have been champing at the bit since our season ended last year. You know, we only played seven games. I thought that they had a great offseason. They worked extremely hard. You really don’t know what you are going to get – there is an idea with what you think you can do in all three phases of the game. But until you actually play another opponent, you’re not sure. I think there are some positive things that we can build on today, but there are a lot of things that we’ve got to clean up. You feel fortunate that we came out of it relatively healthy, but we have a very formidable opponent coming in here next Saturday so we’ll get right back to work pretty quickly.”
on UCLA’s running combination with Brittain Brown and Zach Charbonnet
“It’s comforting to know. There is not much of a transition between either of those guys. At times, we’d really relied on Josh [Kelley] a lot. And then it was awesome that we could get [Demetric] Felton in from wide receiver and he started to pick it up. He was a different type of weapon. He’s being used in the NFL right now in the slot and as a running back, but to really not have to change very much because Brittain and Zach are very similar in terms of body types and the types of runs that they can do. But I thought that both of those guys did a good job in the passing game today. They are three-down backs. When you play the schedule that we play, where you need to have multiple running backs, I was very happy with how those guys played today.”
on quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson
“I think that every game expresses itself differently, in terms of what you’re able to do and not able to do. I think at times we saw a lot of two-high safety which allowed us to run the ball. They came out in the second half, tried to play some press man, and Kaz [Allen] got a chance to shake it deep a little bit and Dorian put it on him. He missed a couple of throws today, but he also had a couple of drops. You know, catch-catch and then all of a sudden, may be it is a different story. But I think that our entire team’s ability to bounce back after plays and not that play affect the next play was pretty cool to see. There is a lot of film, like I said, that we can look at and we can built upon that.”
on having a team that can be disruptive on defense and special teams
“Yeah, I mean two separate units but I thought our punt return team did a decent job, based upon what they were giving us from a protection standpoint. Again, I thought our front played really well today. And it was good to see, those guys have worked extremely hard. I thought that we’d be decent up there, and it showed today.”
on the 47-yard touchdown carry by Zach Charbonnet late in the first quarter
“Yeah, he’s relentless when he has the football. He is always running with great forward lean and it makes him very difficult to tackle. He’s 220 pounds. He has legit speed. We have seen it since he was in high school. He’s the same guy that we saw. We were just really happy when we were fortunate to get him, last spring. We saw through the spring and preseason camp, it’s kind of what you guys had the opportunity to see today.”
on Hawaii coach Todd Graham using run blitzes
“You never know. There are two things that happen when you blitz – the band plays, is it our band or their band? There were some gaps in there. I thought our offensive line did a really good job at deciphering what they trying to bring against us. So a lot of credit goes to those guys. They opened up some holes. Because of how Todd does it, there is going to be one guy who the back has to make miss and we were fortunate that both Brittain and Zach did that.”
on Bruin fans jumping upon the bandwagon
“You can write whatever you want. I’ve been very adamant that I can never tell you what to write. This team is a special team because of the people that are there. Now, that doesn’t mean that you can be a special team and get your tail kicked on weekends, too. But, the players that we have right now are really special, and that doesn’t get enough credit. We have 16 kids in grad school. There are 18 graduates on this football team. It is a mature team. I think they’re really disciplined, in terms of what they want to do. We’ve talked about it since we got here, that it is about books and ball. Those guys are eating it up in the classroom, and they are starting to see the dividends on the football field. They’re great people and I think they’re great representatives for this university.”
on the balance between running the ball and throwing the ball
“A lot of it depends on what the defense is doing to you. There were a lot of things in the first half – where you don’t always have to throw it. We were running it, getting 10 yards in a clip, and maybe you have a bad play call. You don’t get points at the end of the game for having a balanced system. We are equal opportunity people. I don’t care if we gain 10 yards on the ground or 10 yards in the air. Sometimes you just see what the hot hand is, and sometimes there is a hot receiver or at times the quarterback is hot or the running back is hot. I think when you discover something that works – our concept has always been we are going to do it until you stop it, and if you take it away, then we have to have a counter for it. That is the chess match that goes on within the game. We don’t sit there as a staff and say, ‘Well we just had three carries for 30 yards, let’s throw it now.’ Run it a fourth time. Let’s see if we can get 10 more yards. So that is our philosophy. We did not think that, ‘Hey, we’ve got to do this, or we’ve got to do that.’ You don’t get points for being balanced. You get points for getting the ball across the goalline. And whether we run it across or throw it to get it across, we really don’t care. There are going to be times where we have to rely on Dorian throwing the heck out of the football. It depends upon your opponent. The Washington State game a couple of years ago was like that, and we threw it almost every down. And there are games like this, where you’ve got to be able to run it. We feel confident that we can do both. But every week, you’ll get tested to see if you can do both.”
on the importance for this team to take advantage of speed
“Kaz is a weapon and I Think that he has found a home. We’ve played him at running back and we have some packages for him. But we didn’t get into any of those today. It was good to see him, he was our kick returner today, but with the ball getting kicked out of the back of the end zone so we didn’t get a chance to return any. He’ll help us in the return game, and obviously he is a weapon in the passing game. I was happy to see him and Dorian get a chance to hook up on that. He’s done both, practicing both in the springtime [running back, receiver]. He’s a really smart kid, so he can handle multiple positions. He’s done individual work at receiver since that part is new to him. He’s another weapon that we can get onto the field.”
junior running back Zach Charbonnet
on his first game as a Bruin
“It was a great experience. I’ve just got to give it all to my o-line. They just put me in great situations when I did have an opportunity. It allowed us to be one-on-one defenders, and that’s all as a running back you can ask for.”
on transferring from Michigan
“I’m just thankful that they let me come in with open arms, and I’m just one of their brothers now.”
on running with Brittain Brown
“I think it’s a great tool, having me be with Brittain. We challenge each other every time we’re in practice and even in the games, we’re challenging each other. I think it’s a great experience for us.”
on how much he’s settled in
“I think the spring was a big thing and the preparation we take as a unit. It’s very prideful and we’re always going to be the most disciplined and the most focused.”
quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson
on the team’s performance
“Obviously, a great team win. The team did great on all phases of the ball: offense, defense, special teams. We took care of the ball on offense and created turnovers on defense, so you can’t ask for more than that.”
on the running game, anchored by backs Zach Charbonnet and Brittain Brown
“If you ask me, I think we have the best running back duo in the country and it was on full display today. I couldn’t be prouder of those guys – all that hard work they put in. As soon Zach stepped on campus, he’s been putting his nose in the playbook and really getting to work. Really happy for those guys.”
on quarterback Ethan Garbers
“I have a great relationship with all the quarterbacks. I try to take care of them like they’re my brothers. Same goes for Ethan. When he’s out there, I’m trying to help him out as much as I can. Coach Kelly kept play-calling to a minimum with, obviously, the [lopsided] score. He did a great job leading the offense down and getting everything rolling.”
on moving into a tie with Troy Aikman for career touchdown passes (41)
“Everything that Troy has done here, I definitely admire and look up to. He is somebody I can always go to. That’s definitely big. I’m just glad we got the win today and we’ll move on to next week.”
junior offensive lineman Jon Gaines II
on blocking for Zach Charbonnet and Brittain Brown
“We have a lot of great running backs in this room. Brittain and Zach especially, we just saw. They run angry, and we love that as an offensive line. To be able to have the opportunity to get them to the second and third level and see what they can do, it’s a great experience for us, and we love to have them here.”
on if they feel more hungry
“One mantra we’ve had on this team in the offseason is we want to be tough, we want to play fast, and we really want to finish. That was something we really lacked last year, and that’s something that we’re going to sustain and hold ourselves to. We’re definitely hungry, and we have to win every single day to be able to perform on Saturdays.”
on the holes the team opened for Zach Charbonnet
“We have pride in it, of course, but that’s an expectation and a standard that we hold ourselves to in the game.”
senior defensive back Qwuantrezz Knight
on the team’s defensive performance on Saturday
“Like Tito [Otito] said, I think we did a pretty good job on defense. Ran to the ball well, which is something we are harping on this year. Left a couple plays out there, but you know this week is a big week. We aren’t going to change what we do we are just going to zone in and come out victorious.”
on opportunities to improve
“I feel like this team can do whatever we want to do. We have a very experienced team, so we just got to get back to the tape and ready for next week.”
senior defensive lineman Otito Ogbonnia
on the Bruins’ defensive performance
“I think we did well. A lot of things to correct, we’ll see that on the film come Sunday and Monday.”
on the Bruins’ overall potential
“We lost all our games last year by 15 points, so having that kind of pain in the back of our minds is what we saw today.”
on starting this season with a better defensive effort, compared to last year
“I think it’s huge, mentally. You never want to start the season with a loss. I think that’s very important to this program. It definitely gives us more hope, more enthusiasm going into future games and understanding what we can do if you put the work in.”
Hawaii head coach Todd Graham
opening remarks
“Obviously, we didn’t play very good. They were obviously a better team than us today. We didn’t play very good in any phase. It was awesome to walk out there and have Colt [Brennan]’s number on our helmet, I’m embarrassed that we played the way we played. It’s just one game, we got beat by a team that was better than us, didn’t coach well, didn’t play offense well, didn’t play defense wall, got a punt blocked. We spent more time on special teams in this camp than any camp I’ve ever been at, and we’ve got to a better job as coaches. It was a disappointing afternoon, just have to go to the next one. We just didn’t play well. Got behind early, you can’t do anything offensively. Their offensive line was good. We had them tackled twice and they broke tackles and went for long runs, that was a big portion of the rushing stuff. Then a lot of it was just four, five yards and they’re pretty good at what they were doing, they were spreading us out to do it. Their backs were good, obviously the quarterback hurt us early. We go through the first series and it’s a 70-yard turnaround on that punt. That was a 50-something-yard punt and then a 14-yard loss on the play because we put our knee on the ground – but he actually had to because it was a bad snap. They were gassed early, they struggled with the heat a little bit, had a lot of guys go down with cramps today, maybe 10 guys. No excuses, we just played poorly.”
on UCLA’s success running the ball
“Nothing they did today was a surprise. They lined up and ran the way we expected them to run. Quarterback didn’t keep it much, we didn’t want him to keep it. We just didn’t tackle very well, we didn’t get off blocks, they just blocked us. We give up one fade, just didn’t get it done on defense, didn’t play well. [We] made two critical errors where we’re totally misaligned. It’s disappointing because it meant a lot to our guys to come here, these are games we look forward to playing and we played poorly, we coached poorly and ultimately I’m responsible for that.”
on his team’s red zone performance
“Not enough plays that can score. We had dropped balls, we had checkdowns we missed, just didn’t execute. You have to give them credit, they were covering us to death.”
on Cameron Lockridge
“I thought one of the bright spots today was [defensive back] Cameron Lockridge. He locked his guy down. He’s matured unbelievably, really proud of him. I was proud of our guys’ attitude, their character, how they responded. There was never any going quiet on the sideline. It was more just upset that we played so poorly. I guess we gave up one pass play, that was about it, the long fade. I thought we had decent coverage on that, just got to get our eyes around and make the play. We scored 10 points and gave up 44, that’s pretty much the story. It’s just disappointing because we’re better than that.”
Hawai’i quarterback Chevan Cordeiro
on the team’s performance
“Just got to learn from this game, I mean they played a good game, UCLA did. We’ve just got to learn from it. We’ve got to look at the film and learn from everything we did wrong. All the things we did good. We’ve got to come back this week stronger with a different mindset.”
on dealing with UCLA’s hot start
“We kept fighting, the O-line, offense, and defense. No matter what the score was we kept fighting until the end. Every 3rd down they would bring cover zero and like I said we just got to learn from it.”
on the heat
“Even yesterday was really hot but we knew it was going to be hot. [We] Tried drinking a lot of water. The reason we played bad wasn’t because of the weather. Just got to go back on the film, look at the playbook, and learn from there.”
on honoring Colt Brennan
“It’s just very disappointing getting the loss period. We tried honoring Colt Brennan and getting a win for him, but everything doesn’t go as planned. It’s just the adversity we’ve got to deal with it we can’t just put our heads down. We’ve got to learn from it and like I said different mindset this week. Looking at the whole season, this should be our only loss.”