It’s a great day to be alive and be a Bruin!
Last night, UCLA dominated UC Berkeley and scored three fourth quarter touchdowns to win, 45-21. Of course, after the game, UCLA head coach Bob Chesney and some of the players met with media to discuss the game.
One interesting tidbit about last night’s game comes from Ben Bolch, who is now with the California Post.
As usual, Bolch has a good article describing much of yesterday’s events which preceeded and followed Coach Chesney’s debut.
Overall, Coach Chesney’s mood was probably best described a tempered excitement. On one hand, he was happy for the win and for his players to get the win. At the same time, it was clear that he saw many of the things we all saw as well. “We got a ton of work that we have to do and clean up because we're just not there yet,” Chesney said.
After all, we wouldn’t want him to accept in victory what he wouldn’t accept in defeat.
He later went on to emphasize that point again later.
Chesney also spoke about what he said to the 17 transfers who showed up on the first day he was there in January. “We said to every single one of them, the only reason you could come here is if you intend to win a championship,” he explained. “And then the only other way you could come here is if you’re going to put the team first, your teammatex second, and yourself third.”
Chesney continued, “Team teammates self. That’s the only way you can do this, right? And then, those were all things that everybody agreed on and everybody believed in.”
“And, I think that’s what you’re seeing out here today. They battled and they they fight hard for each other,” he concluded.
In addition to Coach Chesney, Ta’Shawn James met with the media too. The senior defensive back had to step in due to an injury to Tao Johnson. He explained how the play went for his first interception. “I just had to do my job and let the play come to me and just fall back, catch the ball,” he said. “This is my first one.”
He still sounded almost still surprised about it when he added, “This is my first career. It’s my first career interception.”
The offense had three guys in the interview room after the game. Nico was there as was Wayne Knight and Mikey Matthews.
Mikey was asked about how he felt getting a victory in his return to Berkeley. He clearly took great delight in the win. “The student section was talking crazy,” he said. “So, I'm just happy that we were able to silence them and make him go home early,” he added somewhat smugly.
Matthews seemed to be a bit of a trash talker. When Nico was asked about his injury right off the bat, he was quick to call the play Nico got hurt on a dirty play. When Nico downplayed that, Mikey insisted that he had his back.
In addition to talking about the game, Knight was asked about his recruiting journey out of high school. He explained that JMU was the only Division I school which recruited him and they came in late. “It was a blessing and I took advantage of the opportunity. I committed in December actually,” he said. “You always want to get on the big stage and show everyone that you can do it.”
“I think just being in this room right now is you know it’s very fulfilling, but we got a lot more to do,” he concluded.
Of course, Nico was immediately asked about his injury and he downplayed it, saying he is “great.” He also credited the offensive line and the entire offensive unit. “The whole offensive unit made my job easy out there tonight,” he said. “We’ve seen our potential out there with this first game, and it's on us to go out there and put the work in.”
When a reporter tried to get Wayne Knight to say that it’s Coach Chesney’s age that lets him connect with his players, Knight wasn’t buying it. Knight explained:
“I would say he loves his players and you can truly see it in interviews or if you meet him as a person. He truly loves his players. He buys in. He gets his player to buy in and I think that’s just a huge testament to how he approaches every single day. He shows up the same leader every single day and he expects lot out of us.”
Finally, today, we’ll wrap this up by sharing what Nico had to say about this team’s potential. Iamaleava explained:
The sky’s the limit, I think. As we continue to buy into what Coach Chez has, I think, the sky’s is the limit. So, it’s on our job to focus on going 1-0 every week. We started off with 1-0 and we’re focused on the next week now.
Go Bruins!!!
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A very good way to start the Chesney era. Look forward to needed and continued improvemnt. Looking forward to where the team can go. Go Bruins!!
1-0? Did they get that from WBB? I Like it!!