Spaulding Report: UCLA Football Bye Week and Indiana Week Media Interviews
As you wait for today's game to kickoff, we've gathered all of this week's (and the bye 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 all of UCLA Athletics on YouTube unless noted otherwise.
There’s one thing which will be different about this week’s interviews. Since there were only a few interviews last week during the bye week, I’m putting those in here, too. So, if you took last week off from college football, this will bring you up to date.
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?
Well, when he met with the media last Wednesday, one of the first things he said was refreshing. He called UCLA’s bye week what it is — “bye week.” That Chip Kelly nonsense of calling “Improvement Week” is no longer in the lexicon. Thank goodness. It always seemed ridiculous, especially since there wasn’t ever really a whole lot of improvement that came from it.
When talking about the Hawai’i game, Coach Foster spoke about what he liked about the Bruins’ performance against the Rainbow Warriors. He said, “I just like how they played they didn't blink. The game didn't exactly go the way that guys were expecting it to go but we were playing against a good opponent. Hawaii played a good game and I'm just glad my guys showed that they're resilient and kept playing.”
He did conclude that interview by putting his own spin on what he wanted from the bye week. He said: “I want the whole team to get better. So, it's not a one-sided thing like one side of the ball just needs to get better and the other can stay where they're at. Everybody needs to improve. This is a bye week. So, this is a week of getting better.” It just didn’t sound anywhere close to as ridiculous as it did when Chip would insist on calling it “Improvement Week.”
That was Coach Foster’s only interview last week, but he met with the media again on Monday. Overall, it was a pretty short interview, but the main takeaway was that he seemed pleased with how practices went last week during the bye week. Coach Foster said:
They practiced went intent last week. We had some things that we wanted to fix and I think that some of the older guys were able to show the younger guys how to practice during a bye week. So, it was good that they had that type of mentality.
Coach Foster’s final pregame interview for the week was on Wednesday. It was his best interview of the three and he seemed more comfortable having a conversation the reporters during the interview. When asked if he felt like the team got everything done that he wanted to during the bye week, he responded, “Most definitely because the extra week helped us fix those corrections from the first game and then be able to actually get a little a head start on the Indiana game plan.”
In response to being asked about the five defensive starters who came with the coaching staff from James Madison, Coach Foster explained that they are “just…blue collar football players.” He continued:
Their effort is high, high energy. [Number] Four [Aiden Fisher] doesn't stop. He kind of leads that defense. He's in on a lot of plays and makes a lot of plays for them. So, we’ve just got to tell our guys you're playing against guys that you might think that they're not [very good] but they are just because of the effort and how they play. So, this is a talented defense that we're going against and a talented team. We’ve got to be on our a game.
As I said, he seemed to be in a good mood. In response to being asked about having a part of the student section behind the visiting bench, Coach Foster joked, “I'm actually trying to get paddles for them like Oklahoma State so we can just beat on the wall right there.” Joking aside, he continued “When I was coming out that used to be where the recruits sat. It's a good view but I just hope our student section is fired up and just make as much noise as we can and just be that 12th man for us.”
Switching over to the players, we have Rico Flores and Ramon Henderson from last Wednesday first. On a positive note, Flores sounds hungry. He said, “I wouldn't say I arrived yet. I’ve still got a lot of work still to do. I had a high good stack game, but it doesn't mean nothing. I’ve got to stay hungry and keep my head down and keep working.”
Meanwhile, Ramon Henderson spoke about playing in his first game as a Bruin and making his first interception. He also spoke about how the defense settled down more as the game went along.
Moving on to Monday’s interviews, linebacker Carson Schwesinger and tight end Moliki Matavao met with the media. Of course, Schwesinger was the leading tackler for the Bruins against Hawai’i. Schwesinger covered a whole lot of topics from the bye week to his journey after starting as a walk-on to the team being ready for Indiana.
Moliki Matavao spoke about how he was open a few times and he didn’t get the ball. He also spoke about the student section behind the bench as well as how he is dealing with the increase in travel. He was also asked about how the team worked to fix things after Hawai’i.
The final two player interviews this week were with linebacker Ale Kaho and defensive end Jacob Busic who transferred from Navy this year. One of the things Kaho spoke about what he does differently after suffering from some injuries. He also spoke about relating to the younger guys on the team since he was a part of the 2018 recruiting class.
Busic spoke about how nice it was to get back on the field after being injured last year. He also joked that the team started calling him “CP3” (referencing former Clipper Chris Paul) because he was dishing out assists to other guys on the team.
He also mentioned how he was “unlearning to learn the new style of pass rush here. That's kind of been you know my main focus.” He also spoke about the different Navy connections that this year’s UCLA team has and how they share some of the things they used to discuss at Navy.
He also spoke about what he missed most and what he enjoys about being back on the field. He said, “Just being able to take the field with a group of guys that I hang out with on a daily basis that's really been the best part.”
It’s all about the camaraderie of the team.
Go Bruins!!!
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