Postgame Quotes – USC 19, UCLA 13
POSTGAME QUOTES
USC 19, UCLA 13
Pasadena, Calif. (Rose Bowl)
Nov. 23, 2024
UCLA head coach DeShaun Foster
opening remarks
“Defensively, the defense came out and played a great game. We stopped them plenty of times. We held them to a lot of field goals. Offensively, they just didn’t do their part in the game. It’s a team sport. I just need our offense to be at their best when their best is needed. We’re having problems in the red zone in certain situations – just having false starts, not being able to make a play. I like how hard my guys played. It just showed that they’re resilient. But we just didn’t do enough to win this game.”
on the 4th-and-1 play by UCLA late in the fourth quarter, with a quarterback sneak
“That was the first time I’ve seen a quarterback sneak get called dead. They usually let that play roll. They stopped it. They blew the whistle. Who knows where we would have ended up, but that was the first time I’ve seen that. We have all seen them on TV – everybody gets to get a push and continue to get a push and continue to push and continue to push, and they blew the whistle. I thought it was a good [play] call. Every call that is made in certain situations, I am making those.”
on UCLA’s pass defense coming up with third down stops and USC scoring a touchdown in the fourth quarter
“Just finally made a play. They are scholarship athletes on that side of the ball, too. So they were eventually going to make a play. It was unfortunate. It ended as a six-point game, a one-score game. If we could have just found a way to manufacture a drive and just keep a rhythm and keep going, but we weren’t able to do that. Like I said before, we’ve got one more week to get out there, and we are going to try to fix this.”
on UCLA committing penalties and what can be done to correct that
“It’s just at the top. We’ve got to continue to stop, and I will keep reiterating discipline. That’s why it is my first pillar. I didn’t pull it out of nowhere. It was my first pillar for a reason. I felt like that was something we were lacking. We’re still missing it, so we will continue to strive in the direction of discipline. And eventually, it’s going to get fixed.”
on quarterback Ethan Garbers’ performance against USC
“Ethan’s a gamer. He is always going to be positive and continue to play hard. He doesn’t complain. He just comes back to the sideline. He always uplifts the players and keeps them going.”
on what precipitated the unsportsmanlike conduct penalties at the conclusion of the first half
“From what I was told, somebody might have punched Kwazi [Gilmer], and he might have retaliated from that. Then it just escalated to the whole team was on the field. There was a lot of jawing going on – it happens in this game. In that situation, I would just wish that if you could stop some stuff earlier in the game, you know, when people are talking to the sidelines and stuff like that, it might not escalate to that point. You cannot retaliate. Cannot. I’ve played in this game. I know exactly what it’s going to be. I know exactly what is going to happen. I know exactly what type of stuff is going to be said. And I let my guys know, and you just cannot retaliate. You have to be selfless. You can’t be in that situation and think that I can respond to something. But it is a learning curve, and any time you take an L, you’ve got to learn from it.”
on how much this loss hurts as someone who has played in the rivalry game before
“It’s just frustrating. It’s just frustrating. I wish that we could have come out on top. I felt like we earned the right to win that game, just during the week, the way that we practiced, coming off that loss on a Friday night [at Washington]. The guys just really approached it the way that they needed to. We let one slip through our hands. All of these losses have come to pretty much us just letting it slip through our hands. We have to find a way to finish games and just keep coming out after the half and play better and finish a game. We have to really put our stamp on the end of it. We’ve just got to learn from this.”
on how he can get this team to rebound going into one final game against Fresno State next week
“They kept rebounding this whole season. So they will continue to be resilient and be the type of football players that I know they are. The season is not over. They signed up to play ball, and we are going to finish the season on a good note. Our guys will get out there, and I am going to try to send the seniors off the right way.”
UCLA quarterback Ethan Garbers
on the 4th-and-1 quarterback sneak, late in the fourth quarter
“I was looking at the marker and I thought I was past it. I guess they blew the forward progress dead early. You can’t control that though.”
on his play during the last drive
“Just hard to find a rhythm.”
on what happened at the end of the first half
“I’m really not sure. After that last play I just started heading to the locker room. I wasn’t sure what happened, all I knew was that we were kicking the ball off from like the 10-yard line or something like that.”
on his hit on Mason Cobb
“The ball got tipped up in the air, he was going for it, I didn’t want them to get the ball back. So I hit him as hard as I could.”
UCLA linebacker Kain Medrano
on the emotions of this game and how it can affect the next game
“I think for us seniors, it’s going out the right way. Yeah, we lost, but we have a chance to get a W and go into the offseason on a good note for the guys that are coming back. I think that’s a big thing, being able to win going into the offseason. Have that momentum to push yourself forward.”
on the defense playing great and then giving up the touchdown
“I don’t know if it was that hard, I think it was more so we knew that we needed that stop. That would have been a big stop for us. Being able to control your emotions after that touchdown happened and go back out there again and do the same thing, and shut them out again. That’s kind of what our mindset was, what our focus was.”
on the secondary in pass coverage
“I thought our secondary played amazing. They were making them contest for jump balls down there in the endzone, and we were coming out on top. That’s amazing for our guys. This game kind of propelled us for momentum and some energy to go in, just knowing that on those third downs we can go out there and play great pass defense.”
on not pulling out the win
“It sucks. Not much to it, we really wanted this one. For us seniors, keep the bell at home. To break that streak of the home team losing was kind of a big thing for us. So to not get that done, it sucks.”
on Coach Foster’s emotions during the game
“I saw it come out with big plays and the emotion that he said pregame – trying to get us fired up. Yeah, we have to say level-headed, but there’s also that competitiveness inside you that comes out, and you saw that in him today. He was level-headed all week, and then today that competitiveness and that fire that Coach Foster comes with, it came out today.”
USC head coach Lincoln Riley
opening remarks
“Awesome win. Really proud of this group. It’s been an interesting week and we just decided from the very beginning that nothing out of our control was going to be an excuse, and the guys handled the week really well. The only thing I can compare to is going through Covid football season. The guys just had a mentality the entire week. They felt good coming into the game, made enough plays, can't say enough about us, defensively, how well we played to hold them down, obviously the big stops. We were just pretty awesome defensively – we really were, we played at a high level, excited to see our front continuing to get more active, really starting to affect the game more and more, some of those young guys really come on and play. We have a lot of opportunities offensively to really extend the game or extend the lead. We didn’t play really good in the red zone but we got the one there at the end. We were tough and resilient, special teams was really good again. Eddie was awesome, Lance was awesome, did the things we need to do to win the rivalry game. Feels great, I’m proud of this group. These wins are special, we know how much this means to the city, how much it means to our university, so we’re proud to get the win,”
on Jayden Maiava’s touchdown
“He made a great play. He’s been able to make a few plays for us right now in terms of when things aren’t exactly there, making small, schedule plays. We did a good job protecting him on that play giving him time. And he did a great job finding Ja’Kobi Lane in the back.”
on what it meant to win this game holding on until the end
“Yeah, I mean, I would have taken, I would have liked to score a few more times in red zone and not done that way. But we're battle tested. You know, we have. We've been through a lot of them. I told y'all when we lost a few of these at some point, this is going to become our advantage because we have been in so many. We really don't know anything else, honestly, and so our guys were confident. We made the stops. We had to defensively where we get a decent drive down there and get the field goal offensively. Now it feels great, it does. It just, more than anything. Not for any other week or anything else that's happened, but just this week and what we had to overcome to go win this game, it feels tremendous. I'm really, really proud of how our guys responded.”
on what the win meant to defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn
“I know these games. You know, we a lot of us have been a part of those where you play, you know, an alma mater or you play somewhere you played, or you coached before, all that. So yeah, I'm sure there's some personal meaning for him. But he's such a team guy. I think he's just excited for the win, excited for the way our guys played. And yeah, I know I'm sure it was a meaningful game to him and a couple of our guys obviously that have been on the opposite sideline here. So tonight was about his team, and obviously, defensively, we were tremendous. He and our staff did a great job getting our guys ready.”
on what the defense was able to do in the second half
“We kept swinging and we were able to affect the quarterback. That, for us, has maybe been our Achilles heel defensively this year. Especially early in the year. To be able to see some of these young guys starting – and not just young guys – but the whole d-line step up and affect the quarterback, that changes the way we play the game. That gives us opportunities to call things differently and be aggressive in different areas. We did a nice job. We really didn’t break much at all even after a couple explosive runs. They got to midfield a couple times and were able to stop them. And just to be resilient and keep going out even though offensively there were chances that ended and we just kept going defensively. That’s what really good defenses do.”
USC wide receiver Kyren Hudson
on the trick play that set up the fourth-quarter touchdown
“He [Makai Lemon] threw it even better in practice. He’s an amazing athlete.”
on finishing games
“It’s important to continue to fight. That’s the key word: finish. That’s what we’ve been preaching all week.”
on the vibe in the locker room
“Brotherhood, brotherhood since the beginning. It’s all about making sure nothing affects the brotherhood. It’s bigger than football for us. We continue to just control that, and know that we’ve got each other.”
on the team’s flu outbreak
“We just had to be ready for the opportunity, be ready and stay ready. We’re going to have obstacles thrown at us, we just have to be ready for them.”
on the team’s motivation after last season’s defeat to UCLA
“We just wanted to stay poised and be ready for the opportunity. Last year didn’t go as planned so we just used it as motivation.”
on Jayden Maiava’s touchdown pass
“That’s just Jayden being Jayden. I was telling him on the sideline to just ‘Be him.’ And he did that.”
on Jayden Maiava’s willingness to take risks in the red zone
“He knows who he is. He knows to not let previous plays affect him. He just has to go out there and know who he is and be Jayden.”
on his own play as the leader of the receiving corps
“I’m the older guy and I just have to pass anything I can to them [the younger receivers]. I think it’s bigger than myself. I just show them the thing I’ve learned over the years and just preach it to them. Going out there and seeing them make the plays and execute, it’s a blessing.”
on becoming bowl eligible
“We had some obstacles in the beginning of the year that we didn’t like, but it’s about what you can do when the obstacles start. It’s about using those learning lessons and finishing, and being excited.”
on his late catch for a third-down conversion
“I think we just have to be ready for anything. I think just working on those catches – Jayden trusting me and me trusting Jayden.”
USC quarterback Jayden Maiava
on his late touchdown pass to Ja’Kobi Lane
“I have to be better with my ball security, but Ja’Kobi is a great player and a great athlete and if he’s out there I obviously know he can make the catch.”
on his recent game-winning drives
“We’ve got a great group. We’ve got a resilient group. Those guys did a phenomenal job.”
on becoming bowl eligible
“I think it’s huge. We turned the corner in this three-game stretch. We still have one more before the bowl game, so we have to worry about that one before the next one.”
on his first experience playing in the UCLA-USC rivalry
“It was a great team win. Their team is very resilient. We just put our heads down and went to work."
USC linebacker Easton Mascarenas-Arnold
on the halftime situation and playing angry
“It was a very competitive game, especially considering the history between these two schools. I’m used to an in-state rivalry like this one. It’s just football.”
USC running back Woody Marks
on the frustrations of not finishing off drives in the red zone
“We just weren’t capitalizing. When you get that close you just have to punch it in. You have to find a way. It’s a good thing we got those points, but we can’t settle for three.”
on the rivalry compared to the Ole Miss-Mississippi State rivalry
“It’s not as chippy as the Mississippi rivalry. It was a little chippy after the game, but they did a good job. They were very respectful. I have a lot of respect for their coaching staff.”
on the game winning drive
“This one was different because it was a rivalry game. This was about bragging rights.”
on how USC has prepared him for the next level
“It’s been great. It’s just football, but building relationships has been great. The social part of it, USC puts you in a great position. Working with Coach Riley and the whole coaching staff has been amazing. It’s just amazing how far you can come in life, not even football.”
USC wide receiver Makai Lemon
on his pass on the trick play
“We just put it in this week. We ran it a couple times in practice. We just came out and executed it. I just knew I had to make that pass, I had to sell it, and make a pass.”
on Ja’Kobi Lane’s game-winning touchdown catch
“I’m super proud of Ja’Kobi. He comes in and he comes up big when the opportunity presents itself.”
on Jayden Maiava in the fourth quarter
“I know Jayden has control. You saw it last time when it came up big in a game. He had a great game today.”
USC 19, UCLA 13
Pasadena, Calif. (Rose Bowl)
Nov. 23, 2024
UCLA head coach DeShaun Foster
opening remarks
“Defensively, the defense came out and played a great game. We stopped them plenty of times. We held them to a lot of field goals. Offensively, they just didn’t do their part in the game. It’s a team sport. I just need our offense to be at their best when their best is needed. We’re having problems in the red zone in certain situations – just having false starts, not being able to make a play. I like how hard my guys played. It just showed that they’re resilient. But we just didn’t do enough to win this game.”
on the 4th-and-1 play by UCLA late in the fourth quarter, with a quarterback sneak
“That was the first time I’ve seen a quarterback sneak get called dead. They usually let that play roll. They stopped it. They blew the whistle. Who knows where we would have ended up, but that was the first time I’ve seen that. We have all seen them on TV – everybody gets to get a push and continue to get a push and continue to push and continue to push, and they blew the whistle. I thought it was a good [play] call. Every call that is made in certain situations, I am making those.”
on UCLA’s pass defense coming up with third down stops and USC scoring a touchdown in the fourth quarter
“Just finally made a play. They are scholarship athletes on that side of the ball, too. So they were eventually going to make a play. It was unfortunate. It ended as a six-point game, a one-score game. If we could have just found a way to manufacture a drive and just keep a rhythm and keep going, but we weren’t able to do that. Like I said before, we’ve got one more week to get out there, and we are going to try to fix this.”
on UCLA committing penalties and what can be done to correct that
“It’s just at the top. We’ve got to continue to stop, and I will keep reiterating discipline. That’s why it is my first pillar. I didn’t pull it out of nowhere. It was my first pillar for a reason. I felt like that was something we were lacking. We’re still missing it, so we will continue to strive in the direction of discipline. And eventually, it’s going to get fixed.”
on quarterback Ethan Garbers’ performance against USC
“Ethan’s a gamer. He is always going to be positive and continue to play hard. He doesn’t complain. He just comes back to the sideline. He always uplifts the players and keeps them going.”
on what precipitated the unsportsmanlike conduct penalties at the conclusion of the first half
“From what I was told, somebody might have punched Kwazi [Gilmer], and he might have retaliated from that. Then it just escalated to the whole team was on the field. There was a lot of jawing going on – it happens in this game. In that situation, I would just wish that if you could stop some stuff earlier in the game, you know, when people are talking to the sidelines and stuff like that, it might not escalate to that point. You cannot retaliate. Cannot. I’ve played in this game. I know exactly what it’s going to be. I know exactly what is going to happen. I know exactly what type of stuff is going to be said. And I let my guys know, and you just cannot retaliate. You have to be selfless. You can’t be in that situation and think that I can respond to something. But it is a learning curve, and any time you take an L, you’ve got to learn from it.”
on how much this loss hurts as someone who has played in the rivalry game before
“It’s just frustrating. It’s just frustrating. I wish that we could have come out on top. I felt like we earned the right to win that game, just during the week, the way that we practiced, coming off that loss on a Friday night [at Washington]. The guys just really approached it the way that they needed to. We let one slip through our hands. All of these losses have come to pretty much us just letting it slip through our hands. We have to find a way to finish games and just keep coming out after the half and play better and finish a game. We have to really put our stamp on the end of it. We’ve just got to learn from this.”
on how he can get this team to rebound going into one final game against Fresno State next week
“They kept rebounding this whole season. So they will continue to be resilient and be the type of football players that I know they are. The season is not over. They signed up to play ball, and we are going to finish the season on a good note. Our guys will get out there, and I am going to try to send the seniors off the right way.”
UCLA quarterback Ethan Garbers
on the 4th-and-1 quarterback sneak, late in the fourth quarter
“I was looking at the marker and I thought I was past it. I guess they blew the forward progress dead early. You can’t control that though.”
on his play during the last drive
“Just hard to find a rhythm.”
on what happened at the end of the first half
“I’m really not sure. After that last play I just started heading to the locker room. I wasn’t sure what happened, all I knew was that we were kicking the ball off from like the 10-yard line or something like that.”
on his hit on Mason Cobb
“The ball got tipped up in the air, he was going for it, I didn’t want them to get the ball back. So I hit him as hard as I could.”
UCLA linebacker Kain Medrano
on the emotions of this game and how it can affect the next game
“I think for us seniors, it’s going out the right way. Yeah, we lost, but we have a chance to get a W and go into the offseason on a good note for the guys that are coming back. I think that’s a big thing, being able to win going into the offseason. Have that momentum to push yourself forward.”
on the defense playing great and then giving up the touchdown
“I don’t know if it was that hard, I think it was more so we knew that we needed that stop. That would have been a big stop for us. Being able to control your emotions after that touchdown happened and go back out there again and do the same thing, and shut them out again. That’s kind of what our mindset was, what our focus was.”
on the secondary in pass coverage
“I thought our secondary played amazing. They were making them contest for jump balls down there in the endzone, and we were coming out on top. That’s amazing for our guys. This game kind of propelled us for momentum and some energy to go in, just knowing that on those third downs we can go out there and play great pass defense.”
on not pulling out the win
“It sucks. Not much to it, we really wanted this one. For us seniors, keep the bell at home. To break that streak of the home team losing was kind of a big thing for us. So to not get that done, it sucks.”
on Coach Foster’s emotions during the game
“I saw it come out with big plays and the emotion that he said pregame – trying to get us fired up. Yeah, we have to say level-headed, but there’s also that competitiveness inside you that comes out, and you saw that in him today. He was level-headed all week, and then today that competitiveness and that fire that Coach Foster comes with, it came out today.”
USC head coach Lincoln Riley
opening remarks
“Awesome win. Really proud of this group. It’s been an interesting week and we just decided from the very beginning that nothing out of our control was going to be an excuse, and the guys handled the week really well. The only thing I can compare to is going through Covid football season. The guys just had a mentality the entire week. They felt good coming into the game, made enough plays, can't say enough about us, defensively, how well we played to hold them down, obviously the big stops. We were just pretty awesome defensively – we really were, we played at a high level, excited to see our front continuing to get more active, really starting to affect the game more and more, some of those young guys really come on and play. We have a lot of opportunities offensively to really extend the game or extend the lead. We didn’t play really good in the red zone but we got the one there at the end. We were tough and resilient, special teams was really good again. Eddie was awesome, Lance was awesome, did the things we need to do to win the rivalry game. Feels great, I’m proud of this group. These wins are special, we know how much this means to the city, how much it means to our university, so we’re proud to get the win,”
on Jayden Maiava’s touchdown
“He made a great play. He’s been able to make a few plays for us right now in terms of when things aren’t exactly there, making small, schedule plays. We did a good job protecting him on that play giving him time. And he did a great job finding Ja’Kobi Lane in the back.”
on what it meant to win this game holding on until the end
“Yeah, I mean, I would have taken, I would have liked to score a few more times in red zone and not done that way. But we're battle tested. You know, we have. We've been through a lot of them. I told y'all when we lost a few of these at some point, this is going to become our advantage because we have been in so many. We really don't know anything else, honestly, and so our guys were confident. We made the stops. We had to defensively where we get a decent drive down there and get the field goal offensively. Now it feels great, it does. It just, more than anything. Not for any other week or anything else that's happened, but just this week and what we had to overcome to go win this game, it feels tremendous. I'm really, really proud of how our guys responded.”
on what the win meant to defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn
“I know these games. You know, we a lot of us have been a part of those where you play, you know, an alma mater or you play somewhere you played, or you coached before, all that. So yeah, I'm sure there's some personal meaning for him. But he's such a team guy. I think he's just excited for the win, excited for the way our guys played. And yeah, I know I'm sure it was a meaningful game to him and a couple of our guys obviously that have been on the opposite sideline here. So tonight was about his team, and obviously, defensively, we were tremendous. He and our staff did a great job getting our guys ready.”
on what the defense was able to do in the second half
“We kept swinging and we were able to affect the quarterback. That, for us, has maybe been our Achilles heel defensively this year. Especially early in the year. To be able to see some of these young guys starting – and not just young guys – but the whole d-line step up and affect the quarterback, that changes the way we play the game. That gives us opportunities to call things differently and be aggressive in different areas. We did a nice job. We really didn’t break much at all even after a couple explosive runs. They got to midfield a couple times and were able to stop them. And just to be resilient and keep going out even though offensively there were chances that ended and we just kept going defensively. That’s what really good defenses do.”
USC wide receiver Kyren Hudson
on the trick play that set up the fourth-quarter touchdown
“He [Makai Lemon] threw it even better in practice. He’s an amazing athlete.”
on finishing games
“It’s important to continue to fight. That’s the key word: finish. That’s what we’ve been preaching all week.”
on the vibe in the locker room
“Brotherhood, brotherhood since the beginning. It’s all about making sure nothing affects the brotherhood. It’s bigger than football for us. We continue to just control that, and know that we’ve got each other.”
on the team’s flu outbreak
“We just had to be ready for the opportunity, be ready and stay ready. We’re going to have obstacles thrown at us, we just have to be ready for them.”
on the team’s motivation after last season’s defeat to UCLA
“We just wanted to stay poised and be ready for the opportunity. Last year didn’t go as planned so we just used it as motivation.”
on Jayden Maiava’s touchdown pass
“That’s just Jayden being Jayden. I was telling him on the sideline to just ‘Be him.’ And he did that.”
on Jayden Maiava’s willingness to take risks in the red zone
“He knows who he is. He knows to not let previous plays affect him. He just has to go out there and know who he is and be Jayden.”
on his own play as the leader of the receiving corps
“I’m the older guy and I just have to pass anything I can to them [the younger receivers]. I think it’s bigger than myself. I just show them the thing I’ve learned over the years and just preach it to them. Going out there and seeing them make the plays and execute, it’s a blessing.”
on becoming bowl eligible
“We had some obstacles in the beginning of the year that we didn’t like, but it’s about what you can do when the obstacles start. It’s about using those learning lessons and finishing, and being excited.”
on his late catch for a third-down conversion
“I think we just have to be ready for anything. I think just working on those catches – Jayden trusting me and me trusting Jayden.”
USC quarterback Jayden Maiava
on his late touchdown pass to Ja’Kobi Lane
“I have to be better with my ball security, but Ja’Kobi is a great player and a great athlete and if he’s out there I obviously know he can make the catch.”
on his recent game-winning drives
“We’ve got a great group. We’ve got a resilient group. Those guys did a phenomenal job.”
on becoming bowl eligible
“I think it’s huge. We turned the corner in this three-game stretch. We still have one more before the bowl game, so we have to worry about that one before the next one.”
on his first experience playing in the UCLA-USC rivalry
“It was a great team win. Their team is very resilient. We just put our heads down and went to work."
USC linebacker Easton Mascarenas-Arnold
on the halftime situation and playing angry
“It was a very competitive game, especially considering the history between these two schools. I’m used to an in-state rivalry like this one. It’s just football.”
USC running back Woody Marks
on the frustrations of not finishing off drives in the red zone
“We just weren’t capitalizing. When you get that close you just have to punch it in. You have to find a way. It’s a good thing we got those points, but we can’t settle for three.”
on the rivalry compared to the Ole Miss-Mississippi State rivalry
“It’s not as chippy as the Mississippi rivalry. It was a little chippy after the game, but they did a good job. They were very respectful. I have a lot of respect for their coaching staff.”
on the game winning drive
“This one was different because it was a rivalry game. This was about bragging rights.”
on how USC has prepared him for the next level
“It’s been great. It’s just football, but building relationships has been great. The social part of it, USC puts you in a great position. Working with Coach Riley and the whole coaching staff has been amazing. It’s just amazing how far you can come in life, not even football.”
USC wide receiver Makai Lemon
on his pass on the trick play
“We just put it in this week. We ran it a couple times in practice. We just came out and executed it. I just knew I had to make that pass, I had to sell it, and make a pass.”
on Ja’Kobi Lane’s game-winning touchdown catch
“I’m super proud of Ja’Kobi. He comes in and he comes up big when the opportunity presents itself.”
on Jayden Maiava in the fourth quarter
“I know Jayden has control. You saw it last time when it came up big in a game. He had a great game today.”