Postgame Quotes – USC at UCLA
USC 48, UCLA 45
Pasadena, Calif. (Rose Bowl)
November 19, 2022
UCLA head coach Chip Kelly
on UCLA surrendering 648 total yards to USC and how he explains that
“How do I explain that we lost a three-point ballgame? I think that our players played with great effort today. They did an unbelievable job, and we played against as good a quarterback as I have faced in my college career, watching what Caleb did tonight. I would give Caleb a lot of credit. That is a heck of a quarterback.”
on UCLA’s defense getting three stops early in the game and what changed as the contest progressed
“I think that it’s a long game. I don’t think that you can ever look at just, you had a stop and then it’s going to be stops for the rest of the game. We knew that they were an explosive offense coming in, and they’re a very talented football team. And you’ve got to give them credit. They made one more play than we did tonight.”
on getting the ball back, needing to go 89 yards on that final drive
“We were in our two-minute offense, which has been very good for us, and I think we were moving the ball. We finally got the ball out. We obviously started deep in our own territory, but we got out to get a little bit of breathing room and then got to a third-and-6. We tried to get a flood route into the boundary and it looked like a defensive end dropped into coverage. He showed up underneath that route – good play by them.”
on UCLA quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson’s performance
“He’s special and we have talked about it from his first start at Oklahoma until now. His toughness has been on display for the last five years and he’s as tough as they come. That kid is a warrior. We wouldn’t be where we are if we didn’t have the contributions that he has given us. He sets the tone. He sets the tone in practice and sets the tone every single day. You feel for him and you hurt for him, just because I know how much it means to him. You talk about leaving it on the field, Dorian literally leaves it on the field every time he plays. He’s a special guy who everybody around here – he’s up there, and there have been some great quarterbacks, but I think he’s one of those special ones that has gone through that program. As I told those guys in the locker room, we have two more games to play. We have a game against Cal this Friday on a short week, and then we have an opportunity to play in a bowl game and we’ll find out where it is. We owe this group of 27 guys, let’s go out on the right note. We will be back to work tomorrow.”
on what makes USC quarterback Caleb Williams such a great player
“He’s really accurate. He has a great pocket presence. He keeps so many plays alive, to just extend plays. And I think that when he extends plays – he does a great job of extending plays. He is extremely athletic. He’s as accurate as you can be, throwing the football. I think it’s that combination – that rare dual-threat guy that can beat you with his legs and his arm. Sometimes guys are more of a runner, but he throws it as well as anybody I have seen. Good player.”
on Dorian Thompson-Robinson leaving for one play after the medical staff tended to him in the second half
“The medical team handles all of that, so I don’t have any decisions as a coach, nor should I. I don’t have a medical background. Whatever the medical team that saw him – if someone comes out to see you, you have to leave the game for a play. But he was cleared to come back in.”
on UCLA’s decision to take a timeout at the end of the first half when USC was set to kick a field goal
“Yeah, that was my decision and my decision only. They had rushed out on the field, and I didn’t think the kid – you know, he had missed one earlier. You are just trying to see if you can rattle him a little bit, and it didn’t work. So it was a bad call by me.”
on how important those scores were in the final minutes of the first half
“Well, it ended up being a three-point game, so it was really important.”
on the Bruins being eliminated from the Pac-12 title race
“Yeah, I don’t think that it’s about the title race. It’s losing this game. That’s the one thing, you don’t try to think about, ‘What’s the ramifications of it?’ Our players gave an unbelievable effort tonight, but we came up short. It’s tough when you talk to them after the game, putting that into words. You can play with the effort that they played with tonight, but that wasn’t good enough. Sometimes that is a very tough lesson for all of us to learn. But you’ve still got to come out tomorrow morning. We will watch tape. We will meet as a staff. And we’ll meet with our players and then get out on the practice field. We have a game on Friday. That’s just the way it goes.”
on how his team approaches the balance of rushing Caleb Williams or dropping back into coverage
“They called everything tonight to go after him. That was a big sack by [Laiatu] Latu at the end. That got them out of field goal range and put them into the situation where we’d forced them to punt. It gave ourselves a shot. But I think that you need to do everything against them and we did. We blitzed them, we played zone, we dropped guys into coverage. We rushed two, we rushed three, we rushed four, we rushed six. I think that they ran through it all on defense against them.”
on if there was any chance that Bill McGovern would coach the game tonight
“Billy is unavailable right now.”
on the team’s strong start and getting ready to face Cal next Friday
“It’s just about coming back to work tomorrow and then getting ready for Cal on Friday. We have a protocol and aprocess that we will go through the day after every game we play. It’s just sped up this week. Sunday is usually an off day for our players. And then we start our work week on Monday. So it’s just a matter of Sunday is a Monday, and Monday is a Tuesday and Tuesday is a Wednesday, Wednesday is a Thursday. We travel the day before the game and then we will go play. We have protocols in place to handle this short week.”
on measuring progress that UCLA has made in five years and that USC has made in one season
“I think it’s different times. You come in and didn’t have a transfer portal here four years ago. You can change things quickly with a transfer portal. We have been beneficial, guys like Zach Charbonnet and [Laiatu] Latu and guys like that have done a nice job coming in for us. But I think something that was built in ’18, it’s a different time. With college football, it’s an ever-changing landscape. I don’t think that you can compare ’22 to ’18 at all. It’s entirely, drastically different.”
on if he’s suggesting that teams can better contend for championships on an annual basis
“It depends on how the recruiting goes for you and what you have to be able to lure kids to come to your school.”
UCLA redshirt senior quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson
on UCLA’s final drive of the game
“Obviously, I’m cheering on my defense to get a stop, which they did. They’ve been playing lights out all night. Going into the drive, I had a little bit of miscommunication on the first couple of plays and then finally started to get into a rhythm with the catch with [Jake] Bobo. They did a ‘drop eight’ on the last play. I should have went all the way through my read and probably throw it away when nobody was open. At the end of the day, I’ve got to live with it. It is what it is.”
on the team never quitting, especially tonight
“For me, that’s the one thing I love about this team. I don’t ever have to question that on Saturdays. That’s the standard here – we’re going to play whistle to whistle and all the way until that last zero hits the clock. We just have to go back to the drawing board and fix it up and clean it up to be better for next week and play Cal.”
on him and Caleb Williams being two Black quarterbacks playing in a big game
“Obviously, I feel disappointment. A lot of it on myself. At the quarterback position, you can’t have three turnovers and win the game. It’s just not acceptable. But in terms of having two Black quarterbacks in a big time game like this, playing like this at a high level, much respect to him and the guys they got over there protecting him because he looks great. I try to maximize my game as best as I can to try to get my team [in] the best possible position to win and I’m always going to try to fight for the guys in my locker room. I just couldn’t be more proud of how two Black quarterbacks played because you know we don’t get looks as much as everybody else.”
on how the team puts the loss behind them on a short work to focus on California
“Yeah, we’ve done it before. We’ve already had a Friday game before, so we know the schedule. If anything, we’re going to be better this week because we already know what the deal is. We get to show up tomorrow and get right back to it and flush this loss, look at all the mistakes, make all the corrections to get them fixed and put it behind us for these seniors. Guys like me and [Stephan Blaylock] have got to go out on a good note. The younger guys, I think after tonight, have realized that it’s definitely a special group of seniors. One that will be talked about for a very long time here at UCLA. I just can’t wait to go back out there with them next week and get to play with them one last time.”
UCLA redshirt senior defensive back Stephan Blaylock
on the team never quitting, especially tonight
“Like you said, this is a team that’s going to fight until the whistle blows [and] until the clock hits zero, to always go out there and give ourselves chance to win the game.”
on what makes Caleb Williams such a good quarterback
“His ability to run and his ability to keep plays alive, that’s where us in the back end didn’t do a good job of helping our [defensive] line out. Once he gets scrambling, we know we’ve got some of the best pass rushers in the nation, but we’ve got to help them [helping] us. … Great quarterback.”
on Laiatu Latu’s sack and how the defense was able to get the stop
“I want to say they were in a ‘Detroit formation.’ Ten personnel. I kind of figured they were going to try to do some switch routes [and] get us to cross over. They gave us a simple call [and] put us in ‘cover two.’ [Williams] looked to the boundary and nothing was open. They gave the [defensive] line time to get the sack.”
USC head coach Lincoln Riley
opening remarks
“Great game, obviously. Iconic type of game. Lived up to the billing. Both teams are really good. A lot of back and forths. We talked about that with the guys last night, trying to prepare our team for what a rivalry game looks and feels like, the fact there’s going to be tons of emotion in it. There’s going to be a lot of momentum swings, and you have to be able to ride the wave, and stay in there. Honestly, too many examples to list of that. We found ways, a lot of highlights on both sides. I think, really, the different sides of the ball kind of battling back when we weren’t at our best, there’s a lot of examples, not scoring the first couple drives offensively when we were moving it pretty good. Then us coming back and making some of those kicks. Defensively, gave up some plays but then got the four turnovers, those were the difference in the game. Pretty cool to be sitting here, getting the 10th win and the chance to go to the [Pac-12] Championship game. It’s very meaningful. And this is one of the toughest things to do in football, is beat a good football team on Senior Night at their place. With all that was riding on it on top of that, for us to find a way to get it done, that was a clutch performance by our team, a big-time win.”
on Korey Foreman’s interception
“It was really cool for him. You just never know when it’s going to be your moment, and he was ready. Shane made sure he had the call, and then he dropped back and made a great play on the ball. It wasn’t an easy play. Excited for Korey, he’s worked hard behind the scenes. A great example of ‘don’t worry about outside expectations or what other people think.’ It doesn’t matter, you just keep working and improving, and things happen. He’s a tough kid on top of that.”
on making adjustments after slow offensive start
“Getting the turnovers was big. I think the little surge at the end of the half there was really important. That was a real important stretch. We got turnovers defensively. Offensively, we did a much better job of finishing drives after the first quarter. That was the difference in the game.”
on Austin Jones
“He was huge, but exactly what we expected him to be. Exactly what he has been. There’s not one person in the locker room surprised about the way he plays. Another great example of the unselfishness of this team. He comes in, they’re mixing time in the beginning, we start to ride Travis a little bit more. He could have got down, he could have quit practicing hard, he could have got selfish. Not for one second. There was no doubt in that locker room that he was ready.”
on Caleb Williams
“Having coached some guys like that in the past, guys that win individual awards, you don’t focus on that. Just try to win each week for your team. Those are the guys that do it. He’s been one of the best players in the country this year. He’s really played well. All those things, it’s got to stay about the ball, and that’s the most important thing. I know that’s the most important thing to him and all of us. Maybe those things come to fruition, that’s great, but those are byproducts. That’s not why we’re here tonight, that’s not why he’s here.”
on signs of growth
“Being down 14-0 and then not even flinching, not even thinking about flinching. You build these games up in your head, and the problem becomes when you try to decide what’s going to happen before it happens. You get so excited to play, you kind of dream ‘oh, we’re going to play this unbelievable game.’ You never think ‘oh, were going to be down 14-0.’ I actually told the guys last night, I was referencing a game last year [at Oklahoma] where we were down 28-7 at half and I told the guys we are capable of being down 28-7. We are capable of making some great plays, and mistakes too. The team we’re playing is a good team. You can’t write the script first, you have to just be ready to respond. For us to respond like that, over and over. The other thing I’d say is how many guys stepped up who haven’t had a statistically huge year tonight. You go down the list, we keep talking about the closeness and culture and togetherness of this team, and I think it was on full display tonight.”
on special teams
“It was part of the outcome. It always is. Made a few, obviously. Again that field goal at the end of the half was so clutch. We had a plan to sky kick a couple of them. I think the last one we did, we just didn’t hit a good ball. We hit it about 10-15 yards shorter than we wanted to. We did a good job covering the kicks other than that. They’re dangerous, they’ve done a really nice a job in [kick-off returns] all year, so we wanted to give them a few different looks.”
on if he talked to the team about keeping emotions measured during the week
“We do, but not in any response. Whether they said anything or not, that’s how we handle it. This team, wherever we’ve gone, we’ve gone together. So we wanted to keep it that way.”
on west coast college football
“College football on the west coast, and here in LA, is alive and well. The people that were in that stadium tonight, whether you were a UCLA fan or USC fan, they won’t forget nights like that. What an unbelievable experience. That’s how it’s got to be every week. I’m not just talking about at our place or anything like that, if you’re in this area and didn’t come to this game, boy you missed out. Don’t miss out on too many more.”
USC quarterback Caleb Williams
on what he learned about the UCLA-USC rivalry tonight
“I played in two other games that were large rivalries. I kind of went into this game expecting the same thing. It was gonna be a dogfight, you’re gonna have to do your job at a high level, and keep fighting, keep swinging because there’s been games where we’ve been down going into the fourth quarter, just trying to lead and keep my guys’ heads up because the game’s never over and these are big games.”
on if the momentum swings felt bigger in a game like this
“Swings are going to happen, and you have to be prepared for them. That’s what Coach told us, he prepares us that way. You have to keep fighting, you have to stay together.”
on the significance of both starting QBs in the game being Black
“It’s awesome. If you look at it like that, it’s pretty awesome. But I go into it as it’s just another quarterback over there that the defense has to go against and that I have to go out and play against their defense.”
USC linebacker Shane Lee
on the defense
“That’s our goal, to remain consistent. Every week you come in and you have things to work on. Each week we come in and we assess. Going to the practice field, we talked about focusing on that day. Doing everything we could on that day to be here right now. Staying present, focusing on the little things, focusing on things we know we need to do and can’t skip over. I think that’s why we were able to be where we’re at today.”
on the coverage on the final interception
“I didn’t change it, I just made sure [Korey Foreman] knew what we were doing. Just double-checking.”
on the Pac-12 Championship game
“It means everything. Thinking back to when we all got here, the main thing we wanted to do was come together and have an unbreakable brotherhood. Through our time here, I think we all kind of agree that we’ve seen the growth, and the bonds we have with each other as a team, the energy and passion that we play with, we play for each other. That’s something you have to be a part of to feel, but to me I think that’s the biggest reason why we’re here and that’s what going to keep getting us in these big games and keep leading us to success, is just how much we can rely on each other and just love each other, honestly.”
USC Defensive Coordinator Alex Grinch
on the defensive play call for the final interception of the game
“Just mugging the quarterback. There was obviously a plan in place. You can spot it at times, there’s no question in terms of having guys in second levels of the defense still having the ability to play some match coverage so you weren’t void in a bunch of zones. … We needed to make a play in that moment. There were several instances over the course of the game where we didn’t make those plays and they took full advantage. We talk all the time that a play has to made at the end of the game to win. If you’re not careful, the advantage goes to the offense because they know they have to make a play. On the defensive standpoint, we have to make sure we match that mentality wise. We felt that in the moment we did.”
on how special it was for Korey Foreman to have that interception
“I think for anybody on the roster in a game like this to rise to the occasion – and certainly there are a number of moments in the game that the guys get similar. (He’s) still a young guy in the program and a guy that I think all of us are waiting for that moment that can be a catalyst to springboard him.”
on what they did to try to contain Dorian Thompson-Robinson
“It’s such a difficult matchup across the board. You just know going into this thing he’s going to make some plays. You just want to limit the damage. We certainly did not by any stretch of the imagination do a good job of it.”
USC sophomore defensive back Calen Bullock
on what it means to come back to Pasadena to get this win
“It means a lot to me and not just me, but my whole team. Even the guys that were here last year, we knew what happened last year so we kind of came in here with that chip on our shoulders. This was a big win just for the whole team really.”