Spaulding Report: UCLA Football Hawai'i Week Media Interviews
As you wait for today's game to kickoff, we've gathered all of this week's UCLA Football interviews for you in one place.
Let’s get right to this week’s interviews and see what’s been getting said at this week’s UCLA football press conferences. I’m just going to share these here all in the same place to make it easy for our readers to watch them if you haven’t already. The videos in this article are courtesy of UCLA Athletics on YouTube unless noted otherwise.
As usual, we’ll start with the first interview of the week with UCLA’s head coach. So, what did DeShaun Foster have to say?
He spoke about how the players are excited to get out there and play a game. He also spoke about Hawai’i quarterback Brayden Schager. When asked what the key to stopping his tendency for big plays, Foster said:
You’ve got to find ways to get him out of his rhythm offensively. So, [we’re] just going to come in there and hopefully our front does a good job [and] we're able to to get some hits on him or, at least, get some pressure on him so he's not just sitting in the pocket.
While this interview took place before UCLA released a depth chart for the week, Coach Foster confirmed that Justyn Martin has won the QB2 spot as Ethan Garbers’ backup.
He also explained the value to the team of going out to the Rose Bowl last Sunday to go over the new in-game communication aspects. This season, one player on the field on each side of the ball will have a radio in his helmet and teams can use tablets on the field as well. He said that the value of it was “just so it’s not new on game day really for coaches and players.”
In response to a question about any remaining position battles, Foster indicated that most had been settled except for “maybe kicker and punter.”
On Wednesday, Coach Foster spoke after practice and he seemed more comfortable and chatty than on Monday. He was asked what the anticipation is like for him. He responded:
I would kind of compare it to my first time playing varsity football. You're excited you have a little bit of butterflies, but that's it. I haven't had that feeling in a while. I didn't get it as a freshman here and I didn't have it as a rookie neither. So, it's kind of good cool. It's like Christmas. I'm just anticipating and ready for it to get here.
He also spoke a little about how he will approach his pregame speech as well as how some of his coaches handled that. He explained how the team follows quarterback Ethan Garbers after everything he’s been through at UCLA and how they share an Orange County connection.
When asked about the first seven months have gone, he indicated that it’s gone how he expected before he discussed what the staff has done to fix recruiting.
I just wanted to open it up really. We had what…around 2,000 recruits come through spring. We hosted a lot of guys on officials. We just wanted to open up and let it be seen…let it be known what UCLA has and what we have to offer and I think we did a good job with that. And, then, you know we didn't lose too many guys to the portal. So, they believed in what we're doing and that's all you can ask.
Here’s Wednesday’s full interview:
Jumping to this week’s player interviews, Monday saw interviews with offensive lineman Garrett DiGiorgio and defensive lineman Jay Toia. DiGiorgio spoke about how the offensive line is coming together. He spoke about this year’s goal for the offensive line. He said:
Our main focus is to not let anybody touch Ethan this year and even if that's in the run game. Whatever he's doing, we want to protect Ethan. That's our number one goal.
Meanwhile, Toia spoke about the Polynesian and Hawaiian connections of a lot of the team. He said:
It's exciting especially have a coordinator and a lot of my teammates being from Hawai’i. So, in a sense, we're kind of playing for them too. They're going back to to their hometown. So, we definitely got to show out for them.
Thursday saw quarterback Ethan Garbers speaking with the media. Garbers addressed how the team has grasped offensive coordinator Eric Bienemy’s offense:
Everyone's real confident and and has a lot of good…a lot of the guys have been studying very well and very hard and we’ve got a good grasp with the offense, for sure.
Though he declined to discuss how much it cost him to take the offensive line to dinner. Overall, he seems ready to lead this team. He spoke a lot about the offensive line as well as his receivers and sounded confident that the offense is going to play well.
We’ll wrap up today with new defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe. Coach Malloe spelled out the mission of the defense pretty succinctly. Malloe explained what they need to do this afternoon like this:
First, hopefully, try to produce a pass rush. If we can get to the quarterback, hopefully we can make him make some unsound decisions, but he is the leader of that team, let alone the offense. So, Brayden is special. He'll have a chance to prove himself on Sunday, but, for us, we can just contain him and some how, some way keep him in the pocket, I think that'll give us a chance.
That pretty much sums it up. Get pressure on the QB and contain him.
Now, it’s almost time for the Bruins to go out there and execute what they’ve been working on since Coach Foster took over: Discipline, Respect, and Enthusiasm.
Go Bruins!!!
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