Postgame Quotes – New Mexico 35, UCLA 10
POSTGAME QUOTES
New Mexico 35, UCLA 10
Pasadena, Calif. (Rose Bowl)
Sept. 12, 2025
UCLA Head Coach DeShaun Foster
opening statement
“Not the outcome at all that we wanted. It’s coming down to discipline and execution. Not executing at a high level and not making plays when we need to. We’re not at our best when our best is needed. We’ve got two weeks to fix this, and just looking forward to this opportunity to get it fixed.”
on if this is the lowest point he’s been around with UCLA Football
“Yeah, it’s pretty low right now. Like you said, I’ve been around this program for a long time. It’s just unfortunate what’s going on at this moment. We’re just not executing.”
on the problems on the field
“Too many penalties. We’ve got to find a way to stop shooting ourselves in the foot. We’re not good enough to keep having the type of penalties that we’re having. We’ve got to almost be perfect out there.”
on if he’s still the right coach to lead this program
“Most definitely. (Why?) Because I can get these boys to play.”
on if he feels he’s overmatched
“No. Not at all.”
message to the fans
“If you’re a real Bruin, you’ll still be a fan. There are plenty of programs that have had unfortunate starts who have turned stuff around. You’re either going to stick with it or not.”
on run defense
“Towards the end they were able to run the ball. It comes back to execution and guys not executing exactly how we want them to. But we’ve got to figure it out. That’s what it’s coming down to. This stuff has to get figured out.”
on the message of discipline not getting to the team
“That’s a good question because that’s something I’m wondering myself. You can continue to reiterate that to them. You can just continue to do stuff to continue to make people have discipline in the building. They’re just going out there and not executing that. It blows my mind. It’s something I’ve never been around. We’re going to figure it out.”
on the team’s response in the locker room
“That’s the thing about it. They respond in the correct way. Everybody’s looking at me straight eye-to-eye, standing at attention, understanding what I’m saying, saying ‘Yes, sir.’ They understand what they’re doing. They get that they’re letting it slip away. It’s just unfortunate. This is not something that you would anticipate happen.”
on if there is enough talent on the team to win a game this season
“Well, we know what comes with talent. You can get kids but you’ve got to have a certain amount of money. It’s a whole lot of stuff that goes into acquisition. I like the team we have, and we’re going to continue to fight and get it going. We have enough (talent). We just have to execute on both sides of the ball. There are people wide open. They’re not getting the ball. There are people not catching the ball, people missing the blocks. There are people not making tackles, not staying in their gaps.”
on who is responsible for this
“Everything that happens can fall on me. I’m the head coach. It can fall on me. You don’t have to try to word things differently. I’m the head coach. But what I do know is that eventually this team is going to play with discipline. It’s going to happen. It’s eventually going to happen. Pretty sure we didn’t think we would go on a run last year either when it happened. One thing that is going to happen is that those guys who are in the room are going to continue to believe and eventually it’s going to turn around.”
on the run call at the end of the first half
“I didn’t want it to be a turnover trying to get a pass up there and maybe it got intercepted. I wanted to go into the half knowing we were going to get the ball and I wanted to make sure we went into the half with some okay momentum and not going off a turnover and trying to go out and get the boys excited again.”
UCLA redshirt sophomore quarterback Nico Iamaleava
on the team’s response after falling behind early
“I think that’s on the offense. I think the defense did a great job executing. They got us a stop. We got down into the red area and we shot ourselves in the foot with penalties. We got to be cleaner. It’s costing us point and it’s forcing the defense to go back out there after a three-and-out. We have to help out defense out, and it’s on the players, we have to execute in the position the coaches are putting us in to do.”
on the team’s lack of discipline
“I think Coach Foster preached [discipline] in the locker room. When we’re at our best, we have it. It’s on us, all of us as a group. The coaches are putting us in great positions to go out and perform. I think we just have to go back to going out there and having fun. This is a game, that as a little kid, you love to play. I think a lot of our teammates and our group is treating this like a job. We have to go back to having fun and playing the sport that we love.”
on the team’s belief in Coach Foster’s message
“I totally believe in Coach Foster. He gives me so much belief to get in the building and go to work. He gives me that ‘want’ to go out there and practice, and practice hard. We’re doing him a disservice by not performing for him. He’s telling us everything we need to hear, he’s telling us everything we need to do, and we’re not executing as players. It all falls back on the players. Coach Foster’s done a great job, Coach Tino [Sunseri], and Coach Ikaika [Malloe] have all put us in great positions to win a game and we haven’t done that successfully.”
on the drive before the end of the first half
“We were going left, but another penalty hurt us again. That knocked us back another five yards and that just messes up the flow of our offense. We’re getting down there in the red zone, we’re getting down there in the red area, and we’re shooting ourselves in the foot with penalties that kicked us out of our rhythm. It’s just messing up a lot of stuff. Like Coach Foster said, we got to be disciplined, we got to be cleaner in all operations, and we’re working to do that.”
on bringing energy next week despite the three losses to start the season
“You can look at it two ways. You can be 0-3 and you look at it and you fold, and you don’t care about the season. Or you can look at it as – we know that we’re not playing at our best out there for us, to lose these games. It’s one thing if the other team is just better than you, but we’re just shooting ourselves in the foot with so many costly penalties that are costing us in big time moments. For me, I’m looking at the season ahead of us, we’ve got seven or eight more games to play. It’s time to go get better.”
UCLA redshirt senior defensive lineman Gary Smith III
on the team’s overall struggles
“We’re just not starting fast enough. It’s really the little things. Nobody wants to start 0-3. It’s been a lot of the little details that we got to clean up. We got the guys to do it, we just got to get it done.
on the team’s belief in Coach Foster’s message
“I believe in him one hundred percent. He never really lied to us or anything like that. We just got to keep our trust in him. There are a lot of thing we have to clean up, but I wouldn’t point the finger at Coach Foster. Coach Foster is a great guy, great coach, and he’s done it at the best level. There are things we have to clean up as far as penalties and we’re going get that done. We have to get that done.”
on the team’s performance in practice not translating to the game
“We just have to be at our best when our best is needed. We get in critical situations, critical moments, and we just don’t perform to the level that we perform in practice. That’s something that we’re going to have to fix.”
New Mexico Head Coach Jason Eck
on if he was surprised by UCLA tonight
“I definitely thought we could beat them, and I thought if we could get up on them it would be hard on them because they’ve been down a lot, and sometimes when things aren’t going well, you can spiral downward and stuff. I probably expected them to maybe have a little bit more early. I thought we’d give them our best shot early, so I was a little bit surprised how well we jumped on them early.”
on offensive line’s dominant play
“I give a lot of credit to Coach [Cody] Booth and those guys. Life is all about improvement, and I think we’ve improved a lot up front. When you look at how we ran the ball against Michigan a couple of weeks ago to how we ran the ball today, we really made a big jump forward. I credit Coach Booth for that. He’s done a good job. And those guys. They’ve really worked and take pride in it and did an outstanding job today.”
on beating a Big Ten team at home
“I think it’s big for the program. I asked Frank this week, when’s the last time we beat a power conference opponent, and I think it was 2007 or 2008. So it’s been awhile. It’s a big step for the program. We need to get the bandwagon filled up! We need to get people into the band. They love big-time sports. Maybe this is our revenge for Donovan Dent transferring to UCLA. You can support the football team and get behind us. I’ll be disappointed if we don’t have 30,000 people in the stands for New Mexico State. I’ll be disappointed.”
on what this win does to the team moving forward
“I think our players are bought in. I think any time you can have success and build belief and get guys more bought in, then they’re going to trust us and trust the plan we’re putting out there for how we’re going to do things. I’ve seen that grow. Guys might not have been sure going into Michigan, but I think we built some belief in that game, even though we didn’t win. I think there were some good learning moments from last week’s game. I think we took some steps forward even though it wasn’t maybe the result you’d love to have against a team like that. But then we took another step forward. I definitely think we’ve got a lot of momentum, but we’ve got to focus on the task at hand. We’ve got to get better. In some ways, I love having a bye week after a win like this because it gives us more time to get down to earth. These can be tough sometimes after you have a big win like that to come back and play really well next Saturday. I’m thankful for our bye that we can get down to earth and get to work and get better for a good New Mexico State team that I bet will be 3-0.”
on keeping the intensity during the bye week
“We’ve got to get some guys healthy as well, but we’ll go a little lighter on Tuesday, then on Wednesday and Thursday we’ll be in the pads. Competing and getting better. Iron sharpens iron.”
on Tavian Combs
“I’m proud of this guy. He stuck with it. When I got here, he was in the portal, he was going to leave. One of my biggest jobs as a coach is to make sure the guys who are older – if this is their last year of college football, they say this was my best year, this was my favorite year of college football. I love this year, I loved everything about it. I’m proud of him, and I think it was very fitting for the loyalty he showed to the program. A guy who came here out of high school – six years later. That’s the way I want to build this program. I want to get a lot of guys out of high school who stick with us. It’s awesome to see him finish out with that great interception.”
New Mexico Head Coach Jason Eck
opening statement
“Heck of a win. A lot of fun. I’ve always enjoyed coming to the Rose Bowl. Out of the three times I’ve been here, we’ve won, so every time I’ve come to the Rose Bowl, I’ve won a game, so a lot of good memories. Proud of our kids. Thought we responded, had some adversity. Had some things that didn’t go well, but we kept fighting, kept coming back, and I thought we showed a lot of character and heart. We were the more physical team. We were the more disciplined team, executed better, and kicked their butts. Credit to our players, credit to our coaching staff. Thought we had great plans on all three phases and thought we executed well.”
on RB Damon Bankston’s performance
“Electric. He was awesome. We’re blessed. We have four backs we think are really good players. The trainer came over to me, all dejected, and said ‘I just don’t think I can get Scottre [Humphrey] ready’ and I was like ‘That’s fine.’ [Bankston] stepped up, and we want Scottre to get healthy and get him bac,k but Damon stepped up and played huge.”
on having a strong RB group
“We’re blessed. We had some at South Dakota State, where we had two guys get drafted and another one that was really good, who was a knucklehead, but probably should’ve been at that level, so I’ve had it before, but it’s a blessing. But we’re missing our top receiver today too. Keagan’s [Johnson] our leading receiver and he was out today but guys stepped up. Great job by [inaudible]. Just blending the game plan to fit the personal we have available and using the players we have which I thought was outstanding.”
on what Scottre Humphrey’s injury is
“Just a sprained ankle or something. Nothing serious, he was walking around.”
on what Keagan Johnson’s injury is
“Just a little head injury, but hopefully he’ll be back for next game. He bounced off the turf in that one game against Idaho State.”
on where this game rates for him personally
“It’s a great win. It’s my first win as a head coach against a Power Four opponent. That’s satisfying, but I try to enjoy all the wins. I enjoyed last week against Idaho State. It’s good to come into these venues, whatever the venue is whether it’s the Rose Bowl or the one in Montana, that stadium’s fun. The one at North Dakota State, that one’s pretty fun. But this is up there.”
on whether he expected to have such success in the run game
“I hoped we would be able to run it for 200 yards against them, but they probably exceeded my expectations running for 290 [yards]. We ran it really well early. I thought we may have to wear them down as the game went on, but we ran it well early, so credit to the O-line. I thought the O-line played very well. Coach [Cody] Booth’s done a good job with them, getting better and our backs and tide ends. We’ve done a lot of that [OL] Jaymar Tasi package where he’s at the tight end. He’s a load there coming back on those swipe blocks. He played very physically.”
on when they decided Jaymar Tasi would take different spots on specific plays
“He’s just a good player. He’s physical, he runs through contact. He’s rotated in a little bit at guard as well, but he’s a good player. You want to get your best players on the field and find a role for them.”
on the defense’s performance
“Awesome. I was probably the most proud that they had a three and out backed up after the fumble. Then they punt it and we fumble the punt, give it right back to them. Then they come right back and we hold them to a field goal. That’s tough sometimes. You’ve got to really show some grit, character, and response when you just get the three and out. But they went out and stopped them again for the field goal.”
on his aggression approach during a game like this
“There’s a quote I love. I’m not sure who said it, but ‘fortune favors the bold.’ You’ve got to be aggressive to win games like that, and that was my pitch to the offensive staff in our openers meeting. I wanted to run that first play, and I knew it would be a good hit. I wanted to get past midfield, but we didn’t quite get past midfield, so maybe we should have waited. But we came in here and told the kids we were going to be aggressive. We weren’t going to be scared. We weren’t playing these games to keep it close. We came to win these games.”
on whether they played with any fears
“You want your team to be confident. You don’t want your team to fear making mistakes. I think that’s an environment I want to build around our team. Guys can respond from when they make a mistake, and they’re not afraid to make mistakes and be aggressive. Not afraid to take chances.”
on making the decision to go for the 4th and 1 and if he planned to always go for it
“There was no doubt. The first one, I think, if we had handed it off, we would’ve gotten it. Really, it’s my fault; it’s a bad play call by me. We have a read option if there’s a blitzer off the edge. There wasn’t a blitzer off the edge, so we should have handed it, and I think we would have gotten it for a yard. The second one we got, but we just fumbled after we got it, so ball security there. I believe in ‘DeDe’ [Deshaun Buchanan]. He’ll bounce back from that.”
on what it means to get the opportunity to play at the Rose Bowl and capitalize on the opportunity
“The whole time since I got here, people would tell me, ‘Oh, your schedule is tough’. But it’s all about how you look at things. I thought, ‘Hey, we’ve got some great opportunities’. We didn’t take advantage enough of our opportunity against Michigan, but we took advantage of this opportunity. Having played in the Big Ten, you kind of dream of beating a Big Ten team as a coach. I never dreamed that UCLA would be the first Big Ten team that I’d beat because I never foresaw them being in the Big Ten , but it’s definitely satisfying. It shows what we’re capable of doing.”
comments on (quarterback) Jack Layne’s leadership and poise
“Awesome. Great decision making, tough. I thought he did a really nice job managing the end of the game and making sure we were snapping it low on time. He’s really playing at a high level. I told him this week that he’s been playing the best he’s played in the four years I’ve been with him.”
thoughts on (safety) CJ McBean’s performance
“I thought he did a good job. I have to watch the tape a bit more to really dial in on his performance. It’s usually a big thing if you’re a safety that if you don’t give up a lot of big plays that’s a good sign. They had a 33-yard run, a 32-yard pass, a 20-yard pass-- We didn’t give up a lot of big plays. The stats had him for four tackles. Seems like it was a solid job, be we got to dig into the tape a bit more.”
reasoning for more playing time for Dimitri Johnson
“Just execution. We felt like there were some things against Idaho State that we didn’t execute well. Dimitri’s done a good job at just doing his job. Some guy might be a little faster or a little more flashy, but there’s a premium for being able to trust that a guy’s going to do exactly what he’s supposed to do.”
on whether this game could be a turning point for this program
“We’ve got to keep getting better this week. We’ve got three more practices this week and then the bye. New Mexico State, I bet they win tomorrow, so that’ll probably be a big game. They’re 3-0 and we’re 2-1. That will be a great game in the state. Hopefully we’ll get a great crowd. We have a lot of momentum right now as a program, and it’s important that we keep the momentum and take advantage of it.”
on the (Damon) Bankston TD
“I couldn’t believe it. I was thinking situationally, like what we have to do to get a little closer to go for it because I wasn’t crazy about kicking a really long field goal. And if you punt, there’s a pretty good chance at a touchback, so I was hoping to just get it to 4th and four so we’d be in a good position to go for it on fourth down. I figured ‘He’s got to step out of bounds or something’, but no he just ran all the way and scored. So what a great play by him.”
on if he was surprised by UCLA tonight
“I definitely thought we could beat them, and I thought if we could get up on them it would be hard on them because they’ve been down a lot, and sometimes when things aren’t going well, you can spiral downward and stuff. I probably expected them to maybe have a little bit more early. I thought we’d give them our best shot early, so I was a little bit surprised how well we jumped on them early.”
on offensive line’s dominant play
“I give a lot of credit to Coach [Cody] Booth and those guys. Life is all about improvement, and I think we’ve improved a lot up front. When you look at how we ran the ball against Michigan a couple of weeks ago to how we ran the ball today, we really made a big jump forward. I credit Coach Booth for that. He’s done a good job. And those guys. They’ve really worked and take pride in it and did an outstanding job today.”
on beating a Big Ten team at home
“I think it’s big for the program. I asked Frank this week, when’s the last time we beat a power conference opponent, and I think it was 2007 or 2008. So it’s been awhile. It’s a big step for the program. We need to get the bandwagon filled up! We need to get people into the band. They love big-time sports. Maybe this is our revenge for Donovan Dent transferring to UCLA. You can support the football team and get behind us. I’ll be disappointed if we don’t have 30,000 people in the stands for New Mexico State. I’ll be disappointed.”
on what this win does to the team moving forward
“I think our players are bought in. I think any time you can have success and build belief and get guys more bought in, then they’re going to trust us and trust the plan we’re putting out there for how we’re going to do things. I’ve seen that grow. Guys might not have been sure going into Michigan, but I think we built some belief in that game, even though we didn’t win. I think there were some good learning moments from last week’s game. I think we took some steps forward even though it wasn’t maybe the result you’d love to have against a team like that. But then we took another step forward. I definitely think we’ve got a lot of momentum, but we’ve got to focus on the task at hand. We’ve got to get better. In some ways, I love having a bye week after a win like this because it gives us more time to get down to earth. These can be tough sometimes after you have a big win like that to come back and play really well next Saturday. I’m thankful for our bye that we can get down to earth and get to work and get better for a good New Mexico State team that I bet will be 3-0.”
on keeping the intensity during the bye week
“We’ve got to get some guys healthy as well, but we’ll go a little lighter on Tuesday, then on Wednesday and Thursday we’ll be in the pads. Competing and getting better. Iron sharpens iron.”
on Tavian Combs
“I’m proud of this guy. He stuck with it. When I got here, he was in the portal, he was going to leave. One of my biggest jobs as a coach is to make sure the guys who are older – if this is their last year of college football, they say this was my best year, this was my favorite year of college football. I love this year, I loved everything about it. I’m proud of him, and I think it was very fitting for the loyalty he showed to the program. A guy who came here out of high school – six years later. That’s the way I want to build this program. I want to get a lot of guys out of high school who stick with us. It’s awesome to see him finish out with that great interception.”
New Mexico safety Tavian Combs
on if tonight’s win has sunk in
“Yeah, I’d say it’s sunk in. I can go back to that word ‘blessed.’ I would not be here at this point in my life today without my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I’m forreal blessed for Coach Eck for bringing me on and just giving me that leadership role and putting that trust in me to go out there and do my job each and every down.”
on adjusting to the new defense
“Yeah, I’d say that Coach Eck has a really fun culture and first, you have to buy in. Every coach is different. But for every culture, you have to be willing to have that belief in order to take that culture on. Once you buy into it, you get to see the results for sure.”
on the defensive gameplan for tonight
“Just keeping the quarterback in the pocket like always and just making sure that we understand the route concepts that are coming at us. And just going out there and playing fast and physical, man. That’s our brand of defense.”
on playing fast tonight
“I feel like each and every game we had that opportunity to get better and learn from our mistakes from the past game. Each and every game we’re going to continue to take strides and get better and faster and just move as one as a defense.”
on Caleb Coleman’s improvement
“Yeah, Coleman, his nickname is ‘C9’. He’s a dog, man. We have a lot of really good talent on this team and C9 is taking that really big step on the defense as well. He’s always asking the right questions, trying to be in the right spot. And he’s trying to take on that leadership role as well. Just to be out there and show guys how to do it.”
on David Murphy’s performance
“Murph, that’s my dog. I really am proud of him. I hope he continues to do his job and just get better each and every game like he’s always been doing. I just seen him take strides ever since he’s stepped foot on campus this year. He’s just trying to do the right thing and make sure he’s in the right spot.”
on if this is the best team culture he’s been a part of
“Yeah this is a pretty fun culture. If you’re a football player and you love football, come be a part of it, man. Coach Eck is a really good coach. He’s brought a lot of good coaches with him and we’re trying to do what we need to do to win and have fun. The results will speak for itself.”
New Mexico running back Damon Bankston
on his description of the win
“I would say coming into the week, we knew what we wanted to do. We knew we could win this game, so we just came out here with a relentless effort.”
on what 298 total rushing yards means for the offense
“We have a saying in our RB room that we have the best running backs in the country, and we have a pretty dominant O-Line so we just run behind them and just trust our ability to make plays.”
on the potential capability of the team by winning by 25
“I feel like the ceiling of this team is really unknown right now. It’s super high though; we know how good this team can be, and we proved it tonight, really. So we just have to keep building on it and not let this win get to our heads, and come back from our bye week and do the same thing.”
on the running back depth of the team after Scottre Humphrey’s injury
“Our motto is, when someone goes down, the next person up performs better. Like I said, when Scotty [Humphrey] went down, shout out to my brother Scotty, he’s good, he’s in good spirits, he’s going to be good, but we all knew that me, Dayday [Buchanan], and DJ [McKinney] knew we had to step up to win this game, and we stepped up to the challenge.”
on the team’s running back room
“This is probably the best running back room I’ve ever been a part of; and it’s really fun to be a part of it because when you have other good backs to spill you when you go out, the tempo stays the same and the defense really has to stay on their heels because we have good backs rolling.”
on his screen pass touchdown
“The screen is supposed to hit in the middle; I’m supposed to catch and I run to the middle. But I knew there was a man, I knew six [Vaughns] was on me. So I peeped him, and when I caught it, I knew he was going to crash on, because he ran the play earlier before in the game, and he tackled me when I was going in. So I caught it, and instead of going in, I just went out, and I knew he was going to fall for it. So once I went out, I saw all the green grass, and I just got my eyes on the endzone.”
on playing on natural grass
“I like playing on grass. This is my first time playing on grass, probably since my freshman year of college. So I like the grass; it feels good.”
on how the offensive line came together
“This offensive line is a tight group; they do everything together. I love my O-Line group. They play hard; they’re the hardest O-Line group I’ve ever had. So the way they fight for the QB, for the backs, I really respect them.”
on the defensive performance in this game
The defense was huge; they played their butts off, and that really made us want to go hard on offense. When we had our struggles, and the defense kept fighting; they continued to force punts and get turnovers.”
New Mexico 35, UCLA 10
Pasadena, Calif. (Rose Bowl)
Sept. 12, 2025
UCLA Head Coach DeShaun Foster
opening statement
“Not the outcome at all that we wanted. It’s coming down to discipline and execution. Not executing at a high level and not making plays when we need to. We’re not at our best when our best is needed. We’ve got two weeks to fix this, and just looking forward to this opportunity to get it fixed.”
on if this is the lowest point he’s been around with UCLA Football
“Yeah, it’s pretty low right now. Like you said, I’ve been around this program for a long time. It’s just unfortunate what’s going on at this moment. We’re just not executing.”
on the problems on the field
“Too many penalties. We’ve got to find a way to stop shooting ourselves in the foot. We’re not good enough to keep having the type of penalties that we’re having. We’ve got to almost be perfect out there.”
on if he’s still the right coach to lead this program
“Most definitely. (Why?) Because I can get these boys to play.”
on if he feels he’s overmatched
“No. Not at all.”
message to the fans
“If you’re a real Bruin, you’ll still be a fan. There are plenty of programs that have had unfortunate starts who have turned stuff around. You’re either going to stick with it or not.”
on run defense
“Towards the end they were able to run the ball. It comes back to execution and guys not executing exactly how we want them to. But we’ve got to figure it out. That’s what it’s coming down to. This stuff has to get figured out.”
on the message of discipline not getting to the team
“That’s a good question because that’s something I’m wondering myself. You can continue to reiterate that to them. You can just continue to do stuff to continue to make people have discipline in the building. They’re just going out there and not executing that. It blows my mind. It’s something I’ve never been around. We’re going to figure it out.”
on the team’s response in the locker room
“That’s the thing about it. They respond in the correct way. Everybody’s looking at me straight eye-to-eye, standing at attention, understanding what I’m saying, saying ‘Yes, sir.’ They understand what they’re doing. They get that they’re letting it slip away. It’s just unfortunate. This is not something that you would anticipate happen.”
on if there is enough talent on the team to win a game this season
“Well, we know what comes with talent. You can get kids but you’ve got to have a certain amount of money. It’s a whole lot of stuff that goes into acquisition. I like the team we have, and we’re going to continue to fight and get it going. We have enough (talent). We just have to execute on both sides of the ball. There are people wide open. They’re not getting the ball. There are people not catching the ball, people missing the blocks. There are people not making tackles, not staying in their gaps.”
on who is responsible for this
“Everything that happens can fall on me. I’m the head coach. It can fall on me. You don’t have to try to word things differently. I’m the head coach. But what I do know is that eventually this team is going to play with discipline. It’s going to happen. It’s eventually going to happen. Pretty sure we didn’t think we would go on a run last year either when it happened. One thing that is going to happen is that those guys who are in the room are going to continue to believe and eventually it’s going to turn around.”
on the run call at the end of the first half
“I didn’t want it to be a turnover trying to get a pass up there and maybe it got intercepted. I wanted to go into the half knowing we were going to get the ball and I wanted to make sure we went into the half with some okay momentum and not going off a turnover and trying to go out and get the boys excited again.”
UCLA redshirt sophomore quarterback Nico Iamaleava
on the team’s response after falling behind early
“I think that’s on the offense. I think the defense did a great job executing. They got us a stop. We got down into the red area and we shot ourselves in the foot with penalties. We got to be cleaner. It’s costing us point and it’s forcing the defense to go back out there after a three-and-out. We have to help out defense out, and it’s on the players, we have to execute in the position the coaches are putting us in to do.”
on the team’s lack of discipline
“I think Coach Foster preached [discipline] in the locker room. When we’re at our best, we have it. It’s on us, all of us as a group. The coaches are putting us in great positions to go out and perform. I think we just have to go back to going out there and having fun. This is a game, that as a little kid, you love to play. I think a lot of our teammates and our group is treating this like a job. We have to go back to having fun and playing the sport that we love.”
on the team’s belief in Coach Foster’s message
“I totally believe in Coach Foster. He gives me so much belief to get in the building and go to work. He gives me that ‘want’ to go out there and practice, and practice hard. We’re doing him a disservice by not performing for him. He’s telling us everything we need to hear, he’s telling us everything we need to do, and we’re not executing as players. It all falls back on the players. Coach Foster’s done a great job, Coach Tino [Sunseri], and Coach Ikaika [Malloe] have all put us in great positions to win a game and we haven’t done that successfully.”
on the drive before the end of the first half
“We were going left, but another penalty hurt us again. That knocked us back another five yards and that just messes up the flow of our offense. We’re getting down there in the red zone, we’re getting down there in the red area, and we’re shooting ourselves in the foot with penalties that kicked us out of our rhythm. It’s just messing up a lot of stuff. Like Coach Foster said, we got to be disciplined, we got to be cleaner in all operations, and we’re working to do that.”
on bringing energy next week despite the three losses to start the season
“You can look at it two ways. You can be 0-3 and you look at it and you fold, and you don’t care about the season. Or you can look at it as – we know that we’re not playing at our best out there for us, to lose these games. It’s one thing if the other team is just better than you, but we’re just shooting ourselves in the foot with so many costly penalties that are costing us in big time moments. For me, I’m looking at the season ahead of us, we’ve got seven or eight more games to play. It’s time to go get better.”
UCLA redshirt senior defensive lineman Gary Smith III
on the team’s overall struggles
“We’re just not starting fast enough. It’s really the little things. Nobody wants to start 0-3. It’s been a lot of the little details that we got to clean up. We got the guys to do it, we just got to get it done.
on the team’s belief in Coach Foster’s message
“I believe in him one hundred percent. He never really lied to us or anything like that. We just got to keep our trust in him. There are a lot of thing we have to clean up, but I wouldn’t point the finger at Coach Foster. Coach Foster is a great guy, great coach, and he’s done it at the best level. There are things we have to clean up as far as penalties and we’re going get that done. We have to get that done.”
on the team’s performance in practice not translating to the game
“We just have to be at our best when our best is needed. We get in critical situations, critical moments, and we just don’t perform to the level that we perform in practice. That’s something that we’re going to have to fix.”
New Mexico Head Coach Jason Eck
on if he was surprised by UCLA tonight
“I definitely thought we could beat them, and I thought if we could get up on them it would be hard on them because they’ve been down a lot, and sometimes when things aren’t going well, you can spiral downward and stuff. I probably expected them to maybe have a little bit more early. I thought we’d give them our best shot early, so I was a little bit surprised how well we jumped on them early.”
on offensive line’s dominant play
“I give a lot of credit to Coach [Cody] Booth and those guys. Life is all about improvement, and I think we’ve improved a lot up front. When you look at how we ran the ball against Michigan a couple of weeks ago to how we ran the ball today, we really made a big jump forward. I credit Coach Booth for that. He’s done a good job. And those guys. They’ve really worked and take pride in it and did an outstanding job today.”
on beating a Big Ten team at home
“I think it’s big for the program. I asked Frank this week, when’s the last time we beat a power conference opponent, and I think it was 2007 or 2008. So it’s been awhile. It’s a big step for the program. We need to get the bandwagon filled up! We need to get people into the band. They love big-time sports. Maybe this is our revenge for Donovan Dent transferring to UCLA. You can support the football team and get behind us. I’ll be disappointed if we don’t have 30,000 people in the stands for New Mexico State. I’ll be disappointed.”
on what this win does to the team moving forward
“I think our players are bought in. I think any time you can have success and build belief and get guys more bought in, then they’re going to trust us and trust the plan we’re putting out there for how we’re going to do things. I’ve seen that grow. Guys might not have been sure going into Michigan, but I think we built some belief in that game, even though we didn’t win. I think there were some good learning moments from last week’s game. I think we took some steps forward even though it wasn’t maybe the result you’d love to have against a team like that. But then we took another step forward. I definitely think we’ve got a lot of momentum, but we’ve got to focus on the task at hand. We’ve got to get better. In some ways, I love having a bye week after a win like this because it gives us more time to get down to earth. These can be tough sometimes after you have a big win like that to come back and play really well next Saturday. I’m thankful for our bye that we can get down to earth and get to work and get better for a good New Mexico State team that I bet will be 3-0.”
on keeping the intensity during the bye week
“We’ve got to get some guys healthy as well, but we’ll go a little lighter on Tuesday, then on Wednesday and Thursday we’ll be in the pads. Competing and getting better. Iron sharpens iron.”
on Tavian Combs
“I’m proud of this guy. He stuck with it. When I got here, he was in the portal, he was going to leave. One of my biggest jobs as a coach is to make sure the guys who are older – if this is their last year of college football, they say this was my best year, this was my favorite year of college football. I love this year, I loved everything about it. I’m proud of him, and I think it was very fitting for the loyalty he showed to the program. A guy who came here out of high school – six years later. That’s the way I want to build this program. I want to get a lot of guys out of high school who stick with us. It’s awesome to see him finish out with that great interception.”
New Mexico Head Coach Jason Eck
opening statement
“Heck of a win. A lot of fun. I’ve always enjoyed coming to the Rose Bowl. Out of the three times I’ve been here, we’ve won, so every time I’ve come to the Rose Bowl, I’ve won a game, so a lot of good memories. Proud of our kids. Thought we responded, had some adversity. Had some things that didn’t go well, but we kept fighting, kept coming back, and I thought we showed a lot of character and heart. We were the more physical team. We were the more disciplined team, executed better, and kicked their butts. Credit to our players, credit to our coaching staff. Thought we had great plans on all three phases and thought we executed well.”
on RB Damon Bankston’s performance
“Electric. He was awesome. We’re blessed. We have four backs we think are really good players. The trainer came over to me, all dejected, and said ‘I just don’t think I can get Scottre [Humphrey] ready’ and I was like ‘That’s fine.’ [Bankston] stepped up, and we want Scottre to get healthy and get him bac,k but Damon stepped up and played huge.”
on having a strong RB group
“We’re blessed. We had some at South Dakota State, where we had two guys get drafted and another one that was really good, who was a knucklehead, but probably should’ve been at that level, so I’ve had it before, but it’s a blessing. But we’re missing our top receiver today too. Keagan’s [Johnson] our leading receiver and he was out today but guys stepped up. Great job by [inaudible]. Just blending the game plan to fit the personal we have available and using the players we have which I thought was outstanding.”
on what Scottre Humphrey’s injury is
“Just a sprained ankle or something. Nothing serious, he was walking around.”
on what Keagan Johnson’s injury is
“Just a little head injury, but hopefully he’ll be back for next game. He bounced off the turf in that one game against Idaho State.”
on where this game rates for him personally
“It’s a great win. It’s my first win as a head coach against a Power Four opponent. That’s satisfying, but I try to enjoy all the wins. I enjoyed last week against Idaho State. It’s good to come into these venues, whatever the venue is whether it’s the Rose Bowl or the one in Montana, that stadium’s fun. The one at North Dakota State, that one’s pretty fun. But this is up there.”
on whether he expected to have such success in the run game
“I hoped we would be able to run it for 200 yards against them, but they probably exceeded my expectations running for 290 [yards]. We ran it really well early. I thought we may have to wear them down as the game went on, but we ran it well early, so credit to the O-line. I thought the O-line played very well. Coach [Cody] Booth’s done a good job with them, getting better and our backs and tide ends. We’ve done a lot of that [OL] Jaymar Tasi package where he’s at the tight end. He’s a load there coming back on those swipe blocks. He played very physically.”
on when they decided Jaymar Tasi would take different spots on specific plays
“He’s just a good player. He’s physical, he runs through contact. He’s rotated in a little bit at guard as well, but he’s a good player. You want to get your best players on the field and find a role for them.”
on the defense’s performance
“Awesome. I was probably the most proud that they had a three and out backed up after the fumble. Then they punt it and we fumble the punt, give it right back to them. Then they come right back and we hold them to a field goal. That’s tough sometimes. You’ve got to really show some grit, character, and response when you just get the three and out. But they went out and stopped them again for the field goal.”
on his aggression approach during a game like this
“There’s a quote I love. I’m not sure who said it, but ‘fortune favors the bold.’ You’ve got to be aggressive to win games like that, and that was my pitch to the offensive staff in our openers meeting. I wanted to run that first play, and I knew it would be a good hit. I wanted to get past midfield, but we didn’t quite get past midfield, so maybe we should have waited. But we came in here and told the kids we were going to be aggressive. We weren’t going to be scared. We weren’t playing these games to keep it close. We came to win these games.”
on whether they played with any fears
“You want your team to be confident. You don’t want your team to fear making mistakes. I think that’s an environment I want to build around our team. Guys can respond from when they make a mistake, and they’re not afraid to make mistakes and be aggressive. Not afraid to take chances.”
on making the decision to go for the 4th and 1 and if he planned to always go for it
“There was no doubt. The first one, I think, if we had handed it off, we would’ve gotten it. Really, it’s my fault; it’s a bad play call by me. We have a read option if there’s a blitzer off the edge. There wasn’t a blitzer off the edge, so we should have handed it, and I think we would have gotten it for a yard. The second one we got, but we just fumbled after we got it, so ball security there. I believe in ‘DeDe’ [Deshaun Buchanan]. He’ll bounce back from that.”
on what it means to get the opportunity to play at the Rose Bowl and capitalize on the opportunity
“The whole time since I got here, people would tell me, ‘Oh, your schedule is tough’. But it’s all about how you look at things. I thought, ‘Hey, we’ve got some great opportunities’. We didn’t take advantage enough of our opportunity against Michigan, but we took advantage of this opportunity. Having played in the Big Ten, you kind of dream of beating a Big Ten team as a coach. I never dreamed that UCLA would be the first Big Ten team that I’d beat because I never foresaw them being in the Big Ten , but it’s definitely satisfying. It shows what we’re capable of doing.”
comments on (quarterback) Jack Layne’s leadership and poise
“Awesome. Great decision making, tough. I thought he did a really nice job managing the end of the game and making sure we were snapping it low on time. He’s really playing at a high level. I told him this week that he’s been playing the best he’s played in the four years I’ve been with him.”
thoughts on (safety) CJ McBean’s performance
“I thought he did a good job. I have to watch the tape a bit more to really dial in on his performance. It’s usually a big thing if you’re a safety that if you don’t give up a lot of big plays that’s a good sign. They had a 33-yard run, a 32-yard pass, a 20-yard pass-- We didn’t give up a lot of big plays. The stats had him for four tackles. Seems like it was a solid job, be we got to dig into the tape a bit more.”
reasoning for more playing time for Dimitri Johnson
“Just execution. We felt like there were some things against Idaho State that we didn’t execute well. Dimitri’s done a good job at just doing his job. Some guy might be a little faster or a little more flashy, but there’s a premium for being able to trust that a guy’s going to do exactly what he’s supposed to do.”
on whether this game could be a turning point for this program
“We’ve got to keep getting better this week. We’ve got three more practices this week and then the bye. New Mexico State, I bet they win tomorrow, so that’ll probably be a big game. They’re 3-0 and we’re 2-1. That will be a great game in the state. Hopefully we’ll get a great crowd. We have a lot of momentum right now as a program, and it’s important that we keep the momentum and take advantage of it.”
on the (Damon) Bankston TD
“I couldn’t believe it. I was thinking situationally, like what we have to do to get a little closer to go for it because I wasn’t crazy about kicking a really long field goal. And if you punt, there’s a pretty good chance at a touchback, so I was hoping to just get it to 4th and four so we’d be in a good position to go for it on fourth down. I figured ‘He’s got to step out of bounds or something’, but no he just ran all the way and scored. So what a great play by him.”
on if he was surprised by UCLA tonight
“I definitely thought we could beat them, and I thought if we could get up on them it would be hard on them because they’ve been down a lot, and sometimes when things aren’t going well, you can spiral downward and stuff. I probably expected them to maybe have a little bit more early. I thought we’d give them our best shot early, so I was a little bit surprised how well we jumped on them early.”
on offensive line’s dominant play
“I give a lot of credit to Coach [Cody] Booth and those guys. Life is all about improvement, and I think we’ve improved a lot up front. When you look at how we ran the ball against Michigan a couple of weeks ago to how we ran the ball today, we really made a big jump forward. I credit Coach Booth for that. He’s done a good job. And those guys. They’ve really worked and take pride in it and did an outstanding job today.”
on beating a Big Ten team at home
“I think it’s big for the program. I asked Frank this week, when’s the last time we beat a power conference opponent, and I think it was 2007 or 2008. So it’s been awhile. It’s a big step for the program. We need to get the bandwagon filled up! We need to get people into the band. They love big-time sports. Maybe this is our revenge for Donovan Dent transferring to UCLA. You can support the football team and get behind us. I’ll be disappointed if we don’t have 30,000 people in the stands for New Mexico State. I’ll be disappointed.”
on what this win does to the team moving forward
“I think our players are bought in. I think any time you can have success and build belief and get guys more bought in, then they’re going to trust us and trust the plan we’re putting out there for how we’re going to do things. I’ve seen that grow. Guys might not have been sure going into Michigan, but I think we built some belief in that game, even though we didn’t win. I think there were some good learning moments from last week’s game. I think we took some steps forward even though it wasn’t maybe the result you’d love to have against a team like that. But then we took another step forward. I definitely think we’ve got a lot of momentum, but we’ve got to focus on the task at hand. We’ve got to get better. In some ways, I love having a bye week after a win like this because it gives us more time to get down to earth. These can be tough sometimes after you have a big win like that to come back and play really well next Saturday. I’m thankful for our bye that we can get down to earth and get to work and get better for a good New Mexico State team that I bet will be 3-0.”
on keeping the intensity during the bye week
“We’ve got to get some guys healthy as well, but we’ll go a little lighter on Tuesday, then on Wednesday and Thursday we’ll be in the pads. Competing and getting better. Iron sharpens iron.”
on Tavian Combs
“I’m proud of this guy. He stuck with it. When I got here, he was in the portal, he was going to leave. One of my biggest jobs as a coach is to make sure the guys who are older – if this is their last year of college football, they say this was my best year, this was my favorite year of college football. I love this year, I loved everything about it. I’m proud of him, and I think it was very fitting for the loyalty he showed to the program. A guy who came here out of high school – six years later. That’s the way I want to build this program. I want to get a lot of guys out of high school who stick with us. It’s awesome to see him finish out with that great interception.”
New Mexico safety Tavian Combs
on if tonight’s win has sunk in
“Yeah, I’d say it’s sunk in. I can go back to that word ‘blessed.’ I would not be here at this point in my life today without my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I’m forreal blessed for Coach Eck for bringing me on and just giving me that leadership role and putting that trust in me to go out there and do my job each and every down.”
on adjusting to the new defense
“Yeah, I’d say that Coach Eck has a really fun culture and first, you have to buy in. Every coach is different. But for every culture, you have to be willing to have that belief in order to take that culture on. Once you buy into it, you get to see the results for sure.”
on the defensive gameplan for tonight
“Just keeping the quarterback in the pocket like always and just making sure that we understand the route concepts that are coming at us. And just going out there and playing fast and physical, man. That’s our brand of defense.”
on playing fast tonight
“I feel like each and every game we had that opportunity to get better and learn from our mistakes from the past game. Each and every game we’re going to continue to take strides and get better and faster and just move as one as a defense.”
on Caleb Coleman’s improvement
“Yeah, Coleman, his nickname is ‘C9’. He’s a dog, man. We have a lot of really good talent on this team and C9 is taking that really big step on the defense as well. He’s always asking the right questions, trying to be in the right spot. And he’s trying to take on that leadership role as well. Just to be out there and show guys how to do it.”
on David Murphy’s performance
“Murph, that’s my dog. I really am proud of him. I hope he continues to do his job and just get better each and every game like he’s always been doing. I just seen him take strides ever since he’s stepped foot on campus this year. He’s just trying to do the right thing and make sure he’s in the right spot.”
on if this is the best team culture he’s been a part of
“Yeah this is a pretty fun culture. If you’re a football player and you love football, come be a part of it, man. Coach Eck is a really good coach. He’s brought a lot of good coaches with him and we’re trying to do what we need to do to win and have fun. The results will speak for itself.”
New Mexico running back Damon Bankston
on his description of the win
“I would say coming into the week, we knew what we wanted to do. We knew we could win this game, so we just came out here with a relentless effort.”
on what 298 total rushing yards means for the offense
“We have a saying in our RB room that we have the best running backs in the country, and we have a pretty dominant O-Line so we just run behind them and just trust our ability to make plays.”
on the potential capability of the team by winning by 25
“I feel like the ceiling of this team is really unknown right now. It’s super high though; we know how good this team can be, and we proved it tonight, really. So we just have to keep building on it and not let this win get to our heads, and come back from our bye week and do the same thing.”
on the running back depth of the team after Scottre Humphrey’s injury
“Our motto is, when someone goes down, the next person up performs better. Like I said, when Scotty [Humphrey] went down, shout out to my brother Scotty, he’s good, he’s in good spirits, he’s going to be good, but we all knew that me, Dayday [Buchanan], and DJ [McKinney] knew we had to step up to win this game, and we stepped up to the challenge.”
on the team’s running back room
“This is probably the best running back room I’ve ever been a part of; and it’s really fun to be a part of it because when you have other good backs to spill you when you go out, the tempo stays the same and the defense really has to stay on their heels because we have good backs rolling.”
on his screen pass touchdown
“The screen is supposed to hit in the middle; I’m supposed to catch and I run to the middle. But I knew there was a man, I knew six [Vaughns] was on me. So I peeped him, and when I caught it, I knew he was going to crash on, because he ran the play earlier before in the game, and he tackled me when I was going in. So I caught it, and instead of going in, I just went out, and I knew he was going to fall for it. So once I went out, I saw all the green grass, and I just got my eyes on the endzone.”
on playing on natural grass
“I like playing on grass. This is my first time playing on grass, probably since my freshman year of college. So I like the grass; it feels good.”
on how the offensive line came together
“This offensive line is a tight group; they do everything together. I love my O-Line group. They play hard; they’re the hardest O-Line group I’ve ever had. So the way they fight for the QB, for the backs, I really respect them.”
on the defensive performance in this game
The defense was huge; they played their butts off, and that really made us want to go hard on offense. When we had our struggles, and the defense kept fighting; they continued to force punts and get turnovers.”