Postgame Quotes - UCLA vs. Arizona (Nov. 12, 2022)

Arizona 34, UCLA 28
Pasadena, Calif. (Rose Bowl)
November 12, 2022

UCLA head coach Chip Kelly
on Arizona quarterback Jayden de Laura and what made their offensive so effective
“I think what they did is, he played his tail off. You’ve got to tip your cap to him. We had him a few times but couldn’t get him to the ground. I think that he kept so many plays alive, scrambling and staying on his feet and extending plays. And there were a couple of them where five, six, seven, eight seconds and that is a credit to him – when he’s scrambling, he’s looking to make throws. He played a good football game, a really good football game.”

on UCLA’s Kazmeir Allen not playing
“Kaz was unavailable tonight, couldn’t go.”

on the Bruins appearing to start the game slow
“I’m not worried about going forward. We’ll come back like we normally do, watch the tape as a staff tomorrow, make the proper corrections, and then back to work on Monday. We have two games left in the regular season. We’ve got to correct the mistakes that were made tonight and then move onto the last home game here at the Rose Bowl.”

on what Arizona’s defense did to challenge the Bruins’ offense
“We moved the ball really well. But, we’ve got to convert and score when we get down in the red zone. Not scoring there at the end of the first half there hurt us. You’d have like to get something there, and then you get the ball at the beginning of the second half. We had talked about it halftime. We just have to tie this thing up, it’ll be a 0-0 ballgame from there, and what can we do? I thought we got on track and did some good things there in the second half.”

on what he noticed with UCLA’s defense
“I think that we ran into a really good quarterback. I think that our guys played with great effort, but he extended plays like nobody we have played against this year. And I can’t even recall since we have been here, a kid who has run around like that. All of those big plays that he made while he was running around, I think was the difference in the football game.”

on running back Zach Charbonnet’s performance
“I thought that Zach is a warrior. He played his tail off. He always does. He gives you everything he has. His work ethic, his mindset, everything Zach brings to the table is special. I thought that he played really well. He’s a heck of a football player.”

on facing a quarterback who is talented at scrambling
“We’ll do what we normally do. We will get in and watch the tape from this game and make corrections and then stat practice on Monday for our next opponent. That’s kind of where we are.”

on thoughts that this game may have been a letdown against an unranked opponent
“I don’t look at it that way. I look at it that we didn’t make enough plays to win a football game. We don’t get into the narrative of inspired or not inspired, of who is ranked or isn’t ranked. Everybody is really good. We knew this football team is really good and we talked about it all week long. I think that everybody we’ve played down the stretch here been a good football team, and we are going to face two more. We are going to face two really good football teams, coming in. I think that you’ve got to come play every single game in this league.”

on how his players reacted to the loss
“We met briefly after the game like we normally do. We talked about how we’ve still got two games left in the regular season. Like we’ve said since the beginning, we’ll pick our head up in December and see where we are, and see if that is good enough. Whether you win or lose on Saturday, there’s a process that you go through. You’ll come back on Monday and move on to the next opponent. That is how you have to do it. That’s not novel to us. That is how everybody in college football handles it. You’ll figure out and you’ll look back at the end of the year and do that stuff. But during the year, our week is our week. We’ll be back to work on Monday and we’ll get ready, liked I said, for our last home game here at the Rose Bowl.”

on UCLA’s fourth down attempt with nearly five minutes left
“We thought that we were going to make it. We thought we had a plan to make it, and then I knew that if they got the ball back and kicked a field goal, it would still be a one score game. It would still have been six. We still had a shot. And then we got a shot at the end. We were probably one step away from making the play and winning the football game, but we were probably a step away on a few things tonight, not just that one play. There were other plays where you could look at and say, ‘Well, we were a step away there, too.’ Against a good quarterback like that, I don’t think you can do that.”

UCLA quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson
on fixing the mistakes…
“Every drive is important. There were multiple drives, I’d say, where there was one play or another where there was a lack of focus. They’re all things we can correct on offense, we just have to go out there and watch film on Monday and get back to work. I’m happy that they’re all things that we can correct.”

on motivation for the next one…
“We want to get back to winning, we want to get back to that feeling. That’s what we’re chasing right now.”

on what needs to improve…
“Collectively, as a team, we just have to be better on all phases. Cleaning up the little stuff – penalties, you know, miscommunications on offense, missed tackles on defense – just little things. We have to clean it all up.”

on Zach Charbonnet’s performance…
“It’s our first game with [Zach] really back, I’m proud of him and what he’s been doing, especially from a leadership standpoint. He’s just making sure he’s keeping the guys in the game, keeping the guys motivated. He’s a workhorse, he took a lot of the load tonight and did well with the ball in his hands.”

on moving past today’s game…
“We know what we have the rest of the way, now we’re just focused on the next one. Put this one behind us, watch the film – watch the ugly, watch the good – and move on to the next one. We’ve got a big one coming in.”

UCLA defensive back Mo Osling III
on not being able to contain Arizona quarterback Jayden de Laura
“Hats off to the quarterback. He did a great job tonight just getting out of the pocket and trying to extend drives and extend plays. As a DB, you’ve got to just plaster and cover and wait for the guys up front to go get him. Sometimes it broke down, sometimes they got him. We went out there and fought.”

on what made de Laura so crafty
“It’s the way he carries himself. He’s very confident in his play, and it shows. We knew coming in we’d have to plaster a lot with receivers. But hats off to him; he did a great job tonight.”

on what went wrong on defense
“Just containing, communication from the coaches to the players, just being on the same page were probably our biggest downfall tonight.”

on what it was like in the locker room
“It was just one of those days. It doesn’t define us. We’ve got to move on to next week. We’ve got a big game next week. Just watch the film, correct the correctables and go and play next week.”

on if the loss gives him a chip on his shoulder going into next week’s game against USC
“Absolutely. This is my last home game, so we’re going to go out there and give it our all.”

Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch
opening remarks
“Well, that was a big win. That was a big win for the program. That was a big win for Arizona football. It meant a lot to our team today. It meant a lot to our Southern California players – I think we have 26 of them – it meant a lot to our staff, it meant a lot to every player on our team, meant a lot to Jayden [de Laura, quarterback] to come back after the game he played a week ago and go 22-for-28 and 320 yards, 6-for-6 in the red zone and no turnovers. It meant a lot for our defense to get the stops they got, for Coach Nansen I’m sure it was personal. In the end, I would give credit to our players. That was a fun game, our players played hard. And they got to enjoy it in the locker room, which was awesome, and then we have two weeks left that are guaranteed to us, and we’re going to do everything we can to find a third after that. We’re excited and that was a very good football team we just beat, and we know that. They’re a top-10 team in the country, and we went on the road and won and we’re very proud to say that we did that.”

on the defensive game plan
“I think it was pretty good to hold that team to 28 points. It’s probably one of the top-five explosive offenses in college football. They’ve been scoring at a ridiculously-high number each week. They’ve been doing now with Dorian for five years, Chip is a fantastic offensive coach, Dorian is an outstanding quarterback, and to hold that team to 28 points … Johnny, the whole defensive staff, and the players did a great job.”

on finishing off the win
“To finish? Finishing was huge there. To stop them on fourth down, then to drive it and use about four minutes of the clock, make them use their timeouts, convert on two third-and-shorts to get ourselves in a situation where it was fourth-and-five on the 6. I thought at that point we were going to kick the field goal and make it a one-touchdown game. They had no timeouts, it was going to be a minute left to go up six. Then for our defense to play the way they did, keep them in bounds, I don’t think the clock stopped once other than for a first down, so every time they caught the ball in the middle of the field we got the tackle and used all 14 seconds. Two big time plays.”

on the pass rush
“We had three sacks, seven tackles for loss, pressured them. That’s the difference, right? We had a turnover today, so the last two weeks now we’ve had three takeaways on defense. This week we were plus one, because we had no turnovers on offense. We had three penalties on the game, we had three sacks, we went a span where we weren’t getting sacks and pressures. If you noticed, there’s an enormous amount of new players coming in and pressuring the quarterback.”

on de Laura’s scrambling
“One of the biggest coaching points that we make is if a team is rushing less than four, you have more time than you can ever imagine. We want you to scramble but stay behind the line of scrimmage, to use your time there. He had a two man or three man rush there, there was no real benefit to go forward. You do have a lot of time back there when that happens. That’s when he was able to move around and make some plays, that’s pretty cool when that happens.”

on Zach Charbonnet
“I don’t think you can have a game plan to eliminate that guy. He’s a fantastic running back. He’s going to have a big game. They’re going to have guys that have big games. Dorian is going to usually have big games with his feet. In this case, Charbonnet is going to have a big game, and good for him, they’re going to have a great run scheme, that’s not surprising. In the end, we limited them to 28 points, and that was our game plan.”\

on fourth-down plays by both teams
“I think in each situation, they’re unique to the moment. You can’t really prepare for all of it. Some of it goes down to how you’re feeling with the play call, with the protection, with what you’re going to run and call in that situation. Other times, your gut. I think there was a situation where we pinned them back, and thought that was as good a play as you could have made. Punted from midfield, stopped them on the one. But they drove down and scored a touchdown. But the next time, not going to do the same thing. In that case, I felt like ‘alright, it’s fourth-and-three, this is a time where rather than kick a field goal, I wanted to go get more points because I knew who we were playing.”

on the blocked field goal
“It was a really big play in the game, as we know because the game would have been 31-all. I thought the momentum there was huge, just to get the stop, to force them, and then we put our big block team up. It’s a big time play.”

on what the win means for the program
“I think we’re in the middle of a build that we’ve been talking about all year. We’ve said from the very beginning, I think this is year one. Last year when we got here, we did a lot of things different structurally just to get back to ground zero. This year, we’ve felt like is year one. We’ve won four games. We would like to win two more. We’re going to continue to build and grow, and look at getting better every week rather than focusing necessarily on the final outcome and knowing that if our team gets better, more recruits will want to come here, and if more recruits want to come here, our team will keep getting better.”

on if he felt the win coming
“Our team expects to win every game they play. I don’t think our team was any more or less surprised. They get more surprised when we don’t win than when we do. That’s what we’ve tried to push to them over the course of the season. They were excited about this one. It meant a lot, it really did. It meant a lot to all of us personally and professionally. It was fun to watch our kids smile and dance in the locker room.”

on the 14-0 start to the game
“We’re a pretty good offense, and I think our players are very confident when they go out there. We have very high standards and expectations to score when we have the opportunity to touch the ball. We were disappointed we didn’t score the first drive. Our guys, it’s their preparation and willingness to work and watch tape and understand the opponent and try to get better every week. We have a long way to go to be the team we want to be, but we’re one week better than we were last week.”

Arizona quarterback Jayden de Laura
on the team’s reaction after winning the game
“I was showing emotion, just happy for the team, all the hard work we have put through. We’ve had close games throughout that year that we couldn’t close out. Just knowing that we closed out this one is a good setup for the next two weeks. It’s just testimony to what everyone on the team went through during the offseason and even in the years before.”

on being able to rely on running back Michael Wiley
“It makes my job about 10 or 15 times easier. I know that he has a good sense of space. He runs the ball, [he’s] one of the best athletes that I’ve been around. But just having the trust in him, knowing that he’ll get open. Everything came together for us.”

Arizona wide receiver Michael Wiley
on what the win means…
”It means a lot, just being at this school and the work that I’ve put in – the work that this team has put in, this win just shows how it pays off for us.”

on what this week’s difference was…
“The level of execution, especially in the red zone, I think in the past we had to get better at that. I think this game showed that we worked on it all throughout this week, you know, we worked hard, practiced hard and it paid off today.”

on late game mindset…
“That’s what I wanted, I wanted to close the game out, I wanted that pressure on me because I knew I could take it. I wanted that on my shoulders.”

on where this win ranks…
“This is number one, this is number one right here. I love it. The effort, the overall team win. There were a lot of emotions out there, we wanted it badly and just – of course, they were ranked 12th, and I hadn’t beaten a ranked team since I’ve been here. To beat the twelfth-ranked team, that’s just phenomenal.”

on the improved defensive effort…
“Our defense has been working, the amount of effort we put in week in and week out, we don’t care what the outside says. We are just going to keep working, and, you know, defense came through today. We played complimentary football, and that’s how you play winning football.”

Arizona defensive lineman Jalen Harris
on what he felt after the win
“It felt good. We wanted to come out here and compete, and we felt like we could win. I just know defensively we know our offense is going to score, so we just wanted to come out and focus on one stop at a time and get that stop, and I think we did that tonight.”

on what the mindset and strategy was on the last possession of the game
“Basically, we just wanted to have our best pass rushers in, and they want to affect the quarterback, and have our coverage guys covering, and they did that.”

on the gameplan against UCLA quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson
“We did a good job. He’s a great athlete and a great runner. We wanted to keep him in the pocket and make him make some throws. We think we did an okay job of doing that tonight.”

on where this game ranks for him
“Probably number one for me. But it’s not going to be as good as the next one. We’re just focused on the next one.”

Arizona linebacker Jacob Manu
on the emotions of the game
“It was big for me because I have a lot of family here. Especially for me and the team, this is the biggest win that we’ve had so far. It’s a Top 10 team … It was a big win for the whole team.”

on UCLA running back Zach Charbonnet
“He’s a great player, shoutout to him, but I felt Coach [Johnny] Nansen put us in the right positions to make the stops that we needed.”

on the overall game plan
“Really it was just a do all – 1 of 11. Everybody just do your job, trust our coaches and execute the game plan.”

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Postgame Quotes - UCLA vs. Arizona (Nov. 12, 2022)

University of California, Los Angeles, Athletics

Postgame Quotes - UCLA vs. Arizona (Nov. 12, 2022)